<
https://www.techdirt.com/2026/02/17/preserving-the-web-is-not-the-problem-losing-it-is/>
"Recent reporting by
Nieman Lab describes how some major news
organizations—including
The Guardian,
The New York Times, and Reddit—are
limiting or blocking access to their content in the Internet Archive’s Wayback
Machine. As stated in the article, these organizations are blocking access
largely out of concern that generative AI companies are using the Wayback
Machine as a backdoor for large-scale scraping.
These concerns are understandable, but unfounded. The Wayback Machine is not
intended to be a backdoor for large-scale commercial scraping and, like others
on the web today, we expend significant time and effort working to prevent such
abuse. Whatever legitimate concerns people may have about generative AI,
libraries are not the problem, and blocking access to web archives is not the
solution; doing so risks serious harm to the public record.
The Internet Archive, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit public charity and a federal
depository library, has been building its archive of the world wide web since
1996. Today, the Wayback Machine provides access to thirty years’ worth of web
history and culture. It has become an essential resource for journalists,
researchers, courts, and the public.
For three decades the Wayback Machine has peacefully coexisted with the
development of the web, including the websites mentioned in the article. Our
mission is simple: to preserve knowledge and make it accessible for research,
accountability, and historical understanding.
As tech policy writer Mike Masnick recently warned, blocking preservation
efforts risks a profound unintended consequence: “significant chunks of our
journalistic record and historical cultural context simply… disappear.” He
notes that when trusted publications are absent from archives, we risk creating
a historical record biased against quality journalism."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
