Technology has advanced immensely in the past few decades, and as a result society has become more and more reliant on it. Along with the advances in technology came changes in other various aspects of society such as communication and government. Not a day goes by that people do not use the Internet or technology somehow, whether it is to send an e-mail, update their status on Facebook or Twitter, post something on their blog, or even check the news. People use technology to spread information and post their opinions on controversial topics. It is only natural that because of this change, the way that historical evidence is gathered, as well as the medium of historical evidence, changes also.

Websites such as Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and Wikipedia are all used by normal, everyday people to transmit personal and general information. It is no secret to the government and the rest of society how influential these websites can be to the public. Therefore the government takes full advantage by apparently archiving the “tweets” posted by every user on the newly popular Twitter, a website where people can “tweet” random thoughts as long as they remain under 140 characters. Many would ask what the purpose of this is? Does the government really care about our random everyday ramblings? The question of whether or not this violates privacy laws is raised in this situation, however the fact that we post these things online make it automatically public. Not only does the government take advantage of the world wide web, but so does society and its people. Recently, WikiLeaks, a site that is not run by the government, released government documents regarding foreign policy. In many cases this shows how normal everyday people take advantage of technology by publicly posting government documents. Both the government and its citizens make use of the advanced technology presented to us today which is why the different aspects of historical evidence has changed.