If you edit something directly on the database level then I ' m fairly sure you have complete freedom to edit data outwith the normal flow of data management on the site . At that point , the only record of the change would be , I ' d assume , at the operating system level or within the database system itself so pretty much not something that is easily logged or tracked there may be records of such changes , although someone who knows what they ' re doing could probably make changes without leaving tracks . Such a thing is a completely normal functionality of databases though , the ability to edit them as if they ' re nothing more than a text file . Quite a big issue and something I think isn ' t really considered much . E . g . Imagine if someone edited a Tweet like that . But Twitter I imaginehope may have stronger controls at the filedatabase level to track things like that . Or maybe not , who can tell . We tend to think of the things we post online as immutable somehow , a permanent record , when they ' re really only as transient as , say , the Office documents on your own computer . Edit and access like that is pretty much only ever required for developers , no reason why a CEO should have access to database management tools .