Social Humans is a set of labels dedicated to empowering content creators and informing researchers about user intent.


Social Humans is a label system created to address ethical issues in social media use by archives and academia. The legal constraints of social media platforms for data reuse have proven insufficient for expressing the intent and wishes of content creators or protecting vulnerable and marginalized communities in these spaces. These labels seek to address that gap.

SH-C Labels empower content creators to indicate if and how they want their data to be used, above and beyond the legal use described in policies of for profit social media companies.

SH-A Labels allow archivists and academics to share contextual information determined in data analysis that may be useful for researchers to consider before using social media data in their work.

Social Humans is practicing:
  • Transparency
  • Ongoing Consent
  • Archives in Context
  • Ethical Design
We're looking for partners!
  • Test SH-A labels on existing collections
  • Outreach to content creators for SH-C Labels
  • Suggest new labels and clarifying texts
  • Co-create guides and how-tos
Want to get involved?
  • Email alex@docnow.io