Preserving Tumindig: Technical and Ethical Concerns for the Digital Humanities Researchers

Abstract

In the last twenty years, the conduct of everyday life has been increasingly intertwined with the World Wide Web. Many of these human activities unfolded on the web, specifically on social media platforms, from mundane things such as checking the weather to critical social movements such as the Arab Spring, #MeToo Movement, and the #BlackLivesMatter. These events produce digital artifacts that are important for future research in the digital humanities and social sciences. However, such digital artifacts are ephemeral, and preserving them poses technical and ethical challenges to web archivists worldwide.

This study attempts to archive the #Tumindig movement started by the graphic artist @KevinKalbo, also known as Tarantadong Kalbo. On July 17, 2021, @KevinKalbo tweeted a cartoon of a fist standing in a crowd of other fists who seems to be kneeling, which is reminiscent of the photograph of a man who refused to do the Nazi salute. The post quickly became viral as other cartoonists, graphic artists, and other social media users contributed to the #Tumindig by creating versions of the fist, which usually depicts something about them.

This study will present multiple tools for appraising, collecting, and preserving digital artifacts on the web related to the #Tumindig. In addition, it will discuss the technical and ethical challenges in preserving social media posts. This paper aims to raise awareness and discussion among researchers in the Philippine Digital Humanities about the technical and ethical challenges of archiving the web.