From the website: "Documenting the Now responds to the public's use of social media for chronicling historically significant events as well as demand from scholars, students, and archivists, among others, seeking a user-friendly means of collecting and preserving this type of digital content. Documenting the Now has a strong commitment to prioritizing ethical practices when working with social media content, especially in terms of collection and long-term preservation. This commitment extends to Twitter's notion of honoring user intent and the rights of content creators."

They host workshops and offer various tools to assist researchers in the appropriate use and historical relevance of social media posts. They work to archive and preserve the history being told by social media accounts.