The Ethical Crisis of Public History in Digital Media: A Call for Accountability
Public history is more than just recounting the past; it is an ethical practice that demands accountability in how we engage with and represent history. As a discipline, public history holds a unique responsibility to foster a deeper understanding of historical events and their ongoing relevance, ensuring that history is presented in a way that is truthful, inclusive, and accessible to all. However, recent research conducted at Johns Hopkins in partnership with The Public Historian reveals a growing ethical crisis in how major non-government historical sites are leveraging digital media. This essay explores the findings of our research, emphasizing the critical need for accountability—a cornerstone of modern public history practice—in the digital representations of history.
Our research was driven by a fundamental set of questions: How do these historical sites represent themselves online? How do they portray "their" past? And how do they engage with their online audiences? The assumption, formulated by our students, was that these sites were "good faith" actors committed to representing their histories honestly and ethically, extending these principles to their digital interactions. To test this assumption, we examined the digital presence of several prominent sites, including Mount Vernon, Colonial Williamsburg, the Museum of the American Revolution, Montpelier, Monticello, and Plimoth Patuxet, across various social media platforms such as Facebook, X, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube.
The findings were nothing short of astonishing—and deeply troubling. Rather than acting as platforms for public history engagement, these sites predominantly use their online presence as marketing tools. This shift from education to promotion not only undermines their stated mission but actively distorts the history they aim to represent. In their pursuit of clicks and followers, these sites present a selective version of history, one so curated that it borders on distortion. This misrepresentation fosters a dangerous misperception among online audiences about the work these sites do and the histories they reflect.
Modern public history principles emphasize the necessity of accountability in the representation of history. Accountability means not only being transparent about the sources and narratives presented but also taking responsibility for the impact that those narratives have on public understanding. In the digital age, where information spreads rapidly and often without context, the ethical responsibility of public historians has never been more critical. Yet, our research indicates that many of these sites are failing to meet this responsibility.
Perhaps most concerning is how these sites enable harmful online behaviors, particularly from far-right extremists. Even posts intended to address marginalized histories or restorative justice issues become platforms for pseudohistorical narratives. These falsehoods are left unchecked, placing the burden on individual users—often concerned historians and activists—to counter the disinformation. This lack of institutional support not only burdens those fighting for truthful representation but also contributes to a broader negative historiographical effect. Over time, these unchecked posts become part of the online source base, leading students and others searching for reliable information down a path of misinformation.
This failure of accountability—both in curating historical content and in managing the online spaces where this content is discussed—results in a harmful distortion of history. By allowing pseudohistory to proliferate on their platforms, these sites are complicit in the erosion of public understanding. Modern public history principles underscore that public history is not a neutral practice; it is inherently political and ethical. To abrogate responsibility for how history is represented online is to actively participate in the distortion of truth.
Our students' final report reached a surprising and sobering conclusion: The negative impact of these sites' online presence is so significant and pervasive that it cannot be attributed to a mere lack of capacity, media literacy, or strategic focus. Instead, it suggests a deeper, more troubling issue—these sites may not be acting in good faith in their digital outreach. They are, in fact, doing harm to the public's understanding of the very history they claim to preserve and promote. This aligns with my argument that when public historians fail to uphold their ethical responsibilities, they do more than just falter—they do active harm.
Interestingly, the only variation in this troubling trend was found on TikTok, where the platform’s robust intermedial engagement tools allow for a more active countering of pseudohistory. Users with strong presences on the platform can mobilize communities to promote "honest history" and challenge the inaccuracies propagated by these sites. On other platforms, however, such as YouTube, even when the content is of high quality—such as Monticello’s excellent videos—the lack of interaction renders these efforts nearly inert, serving more as static landing pages than dynamic engagement opportunities.
In light of these findings, our students have made several key recommendations. First and foremost, they call for a complete reformation of how public history is practiced in digital media. This includes improving digital media literacy among those responsible for these sites' online presence, shifting the focus from marketing to genuine public history engagement. Our principles demand that these institutions not only acknowledge the ethical responsibility inherent in public history but also actively work to meet it. This means being transparent, being accountable, and being willing to confront uncomfortable truths in order to serve the public good.
Additionally, there is a pressing need to build into the practical guidance of both academic and public historians an awareness of their responsibility to manage their subjects online. As one of our teams astutely observed, scholars now risk irrelevance if they allow their work to be hijacked by bad actors online, particularly on sensitive subjects such as slavery and religion. Our insistence on accountability highlights that this is not just about preserving history—it’s about preserving the integrity of the discipline itself.
The implications of our research are clear: If historical sites are to fulfill their mission of educating the public, they must take their online presence seriously, not as an afterthought or mere marketing tool but as a central component of their public history practice. This means committing to transparency, accountability, and ethical responsibility in all digital interactions. The future of public history—and the public’s trust in it—depends on it.
