UC Berkeley Library

It will be almost a year since the Presidential elections in Belarus; they took place last year on August 9, 2020. And the outcome of these elections did not surprise anyone when the Central Elections Commission of Belarus declared that the incumbent President Lukashenko was yet again elected with approximately 80% of votes cast. However, one can see that 20% of the votes cast and counted or counterfeited or undercounted meant there was an underlying level of dissent in the country. The ensuing persistent popular demonstrations that continued although the police actions of OMON (Атрад міліцыі асобага прызначэння) and the use of social media by multiple individuals represented an opportunity to harvest robust and granular archival data related to social protest moment in Belarus. Thus the idea of the web-archiving project took hold at UC Berkeley. At the same time, one can contest the ephemeral nature of digitally born content or even argue the need for documenting and preserving multiple views as expressed in the popular media of Belarus, the importance of preservation and representing the diverse voice in Belarus.