Individuals in the Crowd: Privacy, Online Participatory Curation, and the Public Historian as Private Citizen

Abstract

This essay examinesNC HB2: A Citizens’History, a digital project that gath-ers materials related to North Carolina House Bill 2, also known as“the bathroombill,”legislation that promoted discrimination against transgender people and drewprotest in the form of direct action and boycott. Drawing on the author’s experienceas the site’s creator, the essay argues that digital crowdsourcing increases the tensionbetween public historians’professional roles and their roles as private citizens andamplifies the power dynamics that shape co-creation.