According to a press release, the Committee on House Administration has adopted new rules that “permit Members to post content on outside websites so long as the content is for ‘official purposes’….”
On the one hand, this is a welcome relief from the rules the House was using, which seemed more appropriate for the nineteenth century than the twenty-first.
On the other hand, it will it make the job of identifying, authenticating, and preserving official government information that much more difficult.
John Wonderlich reports that the new rules say that Members of the House may post “official content” outside of .gov:
In addition to their official (house.gov) Web site, a Member may maintain another Web site(s), channel(s) or otherwise post material on third-party Web sites.
With official government information migrating to YouTube and other dot-coms and without deposit of official government information in depository libraries, even web harvesting projects will have little hope of being comprehensive.
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