Reddit has decided to block the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine, crucial for preserving web history, citing concerns over tech companies using its content for search engines and AI training. As two-thirds of links since 2013 are already broken, this decision could deepen 'link rot', severely impacting our knowledge of past online content. In response, Bellingcat has launched Auto Archiver, a tool designed to preserve online digital content that may be altered or deleted, addressing the urgent need for accountability in fast-moving events.
"Reddit announced it would begin blocking the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine from crawling the site to make an archival copy. Wayback is the closest thing we have... to a permanent record of the web..."
"Despite knowing for decades that cool URLs don't change, the churn of publishers, domain names, content management systems, and URL shorteners have all contributed to make link rot an epidemic..."
"Reddit's reasoning isn't really about anything the Internet Archive has done. It's that Reddit has decided to prevent tech companies from crawling its site to either show up in their search engines or train their large language models; now those companies must pay for the privilege."
"Bellingcat... announced a new version of its tool Auto Archiver, which it describes as 'a tool aimed at preserving online digital content before it can be modified, deleted or taken down'..."
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