Internet Archive begins fact checking archived sites - They resisted a long time but they fell at last

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Fact Checks and Context for Wayback Machine Pages​


Posted on October 30, 2020 by Mark Graham

Fact checking organizations and origin websites sometimes have information about pages archived in the Wayback Machine. The Internet Archive has started to surface some of these annotations for Wayback Machine users. We are attempting to preserve our digital history but recognize the issues around providing access to false and misleading information coming from different sources. By providing convenient links to contextual information we hope that our patrons will better understand what they are reading in the Wayback Machine.
As an example, Politifact has investigated a claim included in a webpage that we archived. Our.news has matched this URL to the Politifact review which allowed us to provide a yellow context banner for Wayback Machine patrons.

In a different case, we surfaced the discovery that a webpage is part of a disinformation campaign according to the researchers at Graphika and link to their research report.

As a last example, the Internet Archive archived a Medium post that was subsequently removed based on a violation of their Covid-19 Content Policy.
As a library, our intention is to provide access to source material that might otherwise disappear but doing so with context prominently displayed.

We would like to acknowledge the hard work of the organizations we are building upon in order to provide context for archived web pages: FactCheck.org, Check Your Fact, Lead Stories, Politifact, Washington Post Fact-Checker, AP News Fact Check, USA Today Fact Check, Graphika, Stanford Internet Observatory, and Our.news.
We welcome feedback and suggestions about how to make the Wayback Machine better.
 
they already don't scan sites if a robots.txt file says they can't, they have no problems responding to dmcas
Not to mention they can even stop archiving sites alltogether if the website owner asks nicely for it. Case in point, I came across this really old looking Web 1.0 site called "Toonopedia" by some guy named Donald Markstein, and when I tried to archive it with archive.org, I got this:

excluded.PNG


It's baffling that a self-described "Vast Repository of Toonological Knowledge" would want themselves to be left in obscurity, but I guess archive.org just has to respect the wishes of a 74 year old has-been comic writer.

The thing I fucking love about Kiwi Farms is that it's very much of the mindset that information should be free and universal, no matter how many people scream at you to "TAKE THAT OFF THE GODDAMN INTERNET!". To use a very trite, reactionary, and overdone comparison, imagine if no one ever wrote down the history of the Nazis in World War II because some general asked to pretty pretty please not keep in record all the atrocities they committed.
 
Eh, on the COVID one, the "context" is just to explain that Medium deleted it according to its content policy and Internet Archive is not endorsing the author's view on COVID just because they're archiving it. Probably the least egregious way to do it.

That said, linking to Politifact on archives of news stories is definitely incredibly annoying.
Adding any context is egregious because it distorts the work as written. The IA is no position to do anything but present the copy exactly as it was fetched.
 
Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.
 
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To use a very trite, reactionary, and overdone comparison, imagine if no one ever wrote down the history of the Nazis in World War II because some general asked to pretty pretty please not keep in record all the atrocities they committed.
That basically seems to be the end goal of all this. or a slightly less trite and overdone comparison... like when the Soviets would literally remove information they didn’t like and anyone who referenced it would be killed.
FD6F762B-0F06-486A-9051-E522707A4363.jpeg
 
Who cares they're a private company they can do whatever they want
This stance is why libertarians will get what they deserve when the megacorps turn Current Year into Demolition Man. Dumb fucks completely fail to understand that everything needs checks and balances other than 'lol just walk away' and that passive stance has shown its fucking weaknesses thanks to tranny jannies infecting everything.
 
That basically seems to be the end goal of all this. or a slightly less trite and overdone comparison... like when the Soviets would literally remove information they didn’t like and anyone who referenced it would be killed.
View attachment 1699697

Is that the picture the removed guy shat themselves over because they thought they were about to be disappeared^tm ? (apparently the picture was just better with out them there...)

Or was that another SovCit?

To use a very trite, reactionary, and overdone comparison, imagine if no one ever wrote down the history of the Nazis in World War II because some general asked to pretty pretty please not keep in record all the atrocities they committed.

You mean like how come the SS is counted as a criminal organisation yet there are many parts of the SS without criminal history? Most of them being non German divisions...
 
Is that the picture the removed guy shat themselves over because they thought they were about to be disappeared^tm ? (apparently the picture was just better with out them there...)

Or was that another SovCit?



You mean like how come the SS is counted as a criminal organisation yet there are many parts of the SS without criminal history? Most of them being non German divisions...
No, it’s the one where the dude was executed and then airbrushed out.
 
Not to mention they can even stop archiving sites alltogether if the website owner asks nicely for it. Case in point, I came across this really old looking Web 1.0 site called "Toonopedia" by some guy named Donald Markstein, and when I tried to archive it with archive.org, I got this:

View attachment 1699236

It's baffling that a self-described "Vast Repository of Toonological Knowledge" would want themselves to be left in obscurity, but I guess archive.org just has to respect the wishes of a 74 year old has-been comic writer.

The thing I fucking love about Kiwi Farms is that it's very much of the mindset that information should be free and universal, no matter how many people scream at you to "TAKE THAT OFF THE GODDAMN INTERNET!". To use a very trite, reactionary, and overdone comparison, imagine if no one ever wrote down the history of the Nazis in World War II because some general asked to pretty pretty please not keep in record all the atrocities they committed.

Good point, what happen if an hacker hacked his site and even his back-up data? This is what happened to Nausicaa.net in October 1998 and just imagine if a similar event happened to Toonopedia?
 
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It's a first step in the process of appeasing the left that hates having archives of their shit available due to it showing their dishonesty. Rather than stick to a simple role of providing archives, they're now deciding how appropriate the things archived are, which will inevitably lead to a push for them to decide whether something should be allowed to be archived.
I wonder how many livejournal urls and personal blog sites have already been quietly purged.
 
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