Social media archiving for Illinois government

Illinois agencies act within five business days.

Ordinary requests generally require compliance or denial within five business days, subject to a statutory five-business-day extension and separate rules for other request types. Brolly helps teams search, review and export supported social content for the required action.

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Supported posts, comments, edits & deletions · Search & export · Metadata & audit trail
State agenciesCounties & citiesSchool districtsSpecial districts
The Illinois State Capitol in Springfield
Springfield, Illinois · Photo: Daniel Schwen, CC BY-SA 4.0
The Deadline

A request lands Monday morning.
What happens next?

Manual methods like screenshots miss metadata, timestamps, edits and deletions — and scrambling to pull posts from multiple platforms manually is not a process that fits inside a 5-business-day window.

1Request inA citizen asks for every post and comment about a recent decision — including anything deleted.
2ScopingWhich accounts? Which platforms? Which date range? The inventory alone takes a day.
3SearchingManual trawling across Facebook, X and Instagram begins.
4ReviewingScreenshots have no metadata. Platform exports miss comments. Gaps appear.
5Act byThe statute's required action falls due — produce, respond, or send the applicable notice, depending on your law.
That's 5 business days. Not "when we get around to it." With Brolly, the searching and compiling become one afternoon.
The Law

Why compliance matters in Illinois.

Social media content created or received in the course of official business can be a public record in Illinois. Here is what defines your obligation:

Statute

Illinois Freedom of Information Act

5 ILCS 140 — defines public records by content rather than medium. Posts, comments, replies, edits and deletions created or received in the course of official business can qualify.

Comply with or deny a request within 5 business days; one 5-business-day extension is available for defined reasons.

Oversight

Illinois Attorney General — Public Access Counselor

The Illinois Attorney General's Public Access Counselor reviews access disputes and can issue binding or advisory opinions under FOIA — your withholding decisions can be formally reviewed there. Official page.

Transparency

Illinois Open Meetings Act

5 ILCS 120 demands openness and accountability in how public bodies meet and decide. Open-meetings duties are a separate layer from records law — and a timestamped record of what your agency publishes helps you answer questions under both.

Scope

Social media records may include

Depending on content and context — with metadata and timestamps intact, including material edited or deleted after posting:

PostsComments & repliesReactionsEditsDeletionsImages & videoDirect messages

What is producible in a given request depends on the record's content and the exemptions your state applies.

Case law

Comment moderation: Seventh Circuit case law

Krasno v. Mnookin (7th Cir. 2025) held that a public institution’s interactive comment threads were limited public forums, so comment rules must be reasonable and viewpoint neutral. Schulte v. Leners (7th Cir. 2026), a Wisconsin case, denied qualified immunity where comments were deleted by viewpoint with no policy in place. Both bind federal courts in Illinois as Seventh Circuit precedent.

Neither decision requires archiving. A contemporaneous archive is evidence: it helps show what was posted, what policy existed and how comments were moderated. Read the national moderation guide.

Primary sources: 5 ILCS 140/3(d)–(e) · Illinois State Archives AR D 167.1, pp. 2–3 (social-media series)

Manual methods vs. Brolly

What your agency needs
Screenshots & exports
Brolly
Capture comments & replies as they happen
Only what staff remember to save
Automatic capture across supported channels
Preserve edits & deletions
Gone before anyone notices
Full version history retained
Metadata & timestamps
Stripped by screenshots
Kept in full; exports checksummed
Respond inside the statutory window
Days of cross-platform scrambling
Saved search → export in minutes
Defensible in court or under audit
Unverifiable provenance
Immutable records + audit logs
See It In Action

The record is already there.

“A delight to use,” says one verified G2 review — this is the screen your records officer gets: search the archive, open the record, step through every captured version, and export.

One post, start to finish

One official update. Its captured history beside it.

This is how simple it is in Brolly: the original post, its edited versions and the surrounding public comments, reviewed together.

01
Your agency publishes

A connected official account posts an emergency update as the situation develops.

02
The post is edited

Opening time and access details change — each captured version is retained with its timestamp.

03
A request arrives

Your team searches, reviews the chronology and exports it — checksums, audit logs and integrity evidence attached.

Brolly Archive

Archive feed

Captured posts and conversations from connected accounts

All networksAll accountsAll dates12 captured posts
4281.2k
86244.1k
Edited
61122.8k
Post Inspector
3 versions
Storm shelter update: The community center opens at 8 p.m. 6 p.m. tonight. Bring ID and essential medication. Accessible entrance on Cedar Street.
♡ 86　◯ 24　◉ 4.1k　◉ 6.7k
Demonstration export prepared

Access control & audit logs

Clerks, counsel and records officers each get the access they need — and every export is logged.

Images, video & links

Media and link previews are captured with the post, so the record shows what residents actually saw.

Structured exports

PDF, CSV, HTML or JSON with timestamps and checksums attached — ready for a requester or counsel.

Free download Illinois — Archiving Social Media: A Guide For Government
The Guide

Download the free Illinois
Social Media Legislation Guide.

Social media comes with legal responsibilities. This free guide brings together the key federal and Illinois legislation in one easy-to-read reference — helping your agency understand its obligations and manage social media records with confidence.

Federal & Illinois legislation, side by side Public records obligations explained in plain English Bonus compliance checklist inside Updated August 2026
Download now

PDF · no credit card · straight to your inbox

Built For

Every Illinois public body.

County courthouse with clock tower

Counties

Sheriff's offices, clerks, mayors, highway departments, election commissions — every official account, one archive.

  • County-wide multi-account capture
  • Records-officer-ready export workflows
  • Records retained until disposition is authorized under state records law
A fire engine in a city fire station

Cities & Municipalities

From metro communications teams to a single town clerk running two Facebook pages — sized and priced accordingly.

  • Police, fire, parks, utilities covered
  • Emergency-communication preservation
  • Setup in minutes
A utility crew restoring service from a bucket truck

Public Agencies

School districts, utility districts, transit authorities, housing authorities and boards — all subject to the Illinois Freedom of Information Act.

  • Board & superintendent accounts
  • Public comment threads on record
  • Request-ready exports on demand
The Reference Layer

Asked by clerks, records officers and agency attorneys.

Plain-English answers with statutory citations — the details your counsel will ask about. General information, not legal advice.

The obligation

Are Illinois government social media posts public records?
Content created or received by an Illinois public agency in connection with official business may qualify as a public record under the Illinois Freedom of Information Act, whether it appears in email, a document or a social media platform. Content and context matter, and statutory exceptions may apply, so agencies should follow their records policies and obtain legal guidance for specific requests.
What does the 5-business-day rule require?
Comply with or deny a request within 5 business days; one 5-business-day extension is available for defined reasons. Missing the required action can trigger an appeal, complaint or court challenge, so agencies should confirm current procedures with legal counsel and be ready to produce.
What happens if we can't produce a requested record?
Records that were edited or deleted before anyone captured them can't be produced at all — which is why capture has to precede the request. If a request is refused, Illinois access disputes can be raised with the Illinois Attorney General — Public Access Counselor and, ultimately, the courts, so agencies should be able to show a complete, defensible record of what was published.
How does the Illinois Open Meetings Act relate to our social media?
Open-meetings duties are a separate layer from records law. Ordinary resident comments aren't a meeting of your governing body — but when members themselves discuss public business in comment threads, questions can arise under both laws, and a timestamped record of what your agency publishes helps you answer them.

What counts as a record

Do citizen comments on our official pages count?
Generally, records received in the course of official business fall within scope — which can include comments and replies on official accounts, even ones citizens later delete. That's why capture must happen in real time.
Do edited or deleted posts still have to be produced?
A record doesn't stop being a record because it was edited or removed from the live page. If content was made or received in official business, each captured version, with its timestamps, can be part of what your agency needs to produce.
Can direct messages be public records?
They can be. The Illinois Freedom of Information Act defines public records by content rather than medium, so a message sent or received in the course of official business can fall within scope even in a private inbox. Whether specific messages are producible or exempt is a determination for your counsel.
What about an official's personal account?
Content follows function, not the account label: a personal account used to conduct official business can create public records. The safest policy routes official business through official accounts — and keeps those accounts on the record.

Retention

How long do we have to keep social media records?
Illinois's records authority schedules website and social media content in its approved records schedules — which series and period apply depends on your entity type and the content. Brolly retains records for the period you configure, so your archive can match your approved schedule.

Working with Brolly

We already take screenshots. Isn't that enough?
Screenshots miss metadata, timestamps, edit history and deletions — and can't prove they haven't been altered. Brolly's records carry audit logs, and exports carry digital checksums, designed to survive legal scrutiny.
Which platforms does Brolly archive?
Facebook, Instagram, Threads, X, YouTube, LinkedIn and TikTok — captured automatically through official platform APIs from connected accounts.
Who in our organization uses Brolly?
Typically your FOIA officer, clerk or records staff handle search and export; communications teams use capture and moderation day-to-day; agency attorneys pull audit logs when litigation or records disputes arise.
How quickly can an Illinois agency get started?
Minutes: connect your accounts, confirm retention settings, and capture begins immediately. There's a free trial, and pricing scales from single-clerk towns to county-wide deployments.
Will Brolly pass our procurement and security review?
Brolly is ISO/IEC 27001:2022 certified and CSA STAR registered, with controls aligned to NIST SP 800-53. Records are encrypted in transit and at rest, with audit logs on every record and digital checksums on every export.

Primary source: Illinois Attorney General — Public Access Counselor · 5 ILCS 140 · Last reviewed against primary sources: 2026-08-29 · General information, not legal advice

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“Brolly: The total package for documentation and archiving.”

Brolly is a vital tool for our organization and is the total package for documentation and archiving needs.

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Trust

Security your procurement team can sign off on.

Brolly is ISO/IEC 27001:2022 certified and CSA STAR registered, with controls aligned to NIST SP 800-53. Records are encrypted in transit and at rest, with audit logs on every record and digital checksums on every export.

Visit the Trust & Security Center
ISO/IEC 27001:2022Certified information security management system.
CSA STAR registeredListed on the Cloud Security Alliance STAR registry.
NIST SP 800-53 alignedControls aligned for public-sector security review.
Encrypted everywhereAES-256 at rest, TLS 1.3+ in transit.
99.9% uptime SLAAvailability commitment in the service agreement.
MFA & role-based accessAccess scoped to your team, with activity logged.

Explore more US public records guides

State-by-state guidance on social media archiving laws for government agencies.

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Every day your public sector organization communicates on social media, you're creating public records. Are you confident you could produce them tomorrow?

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