The Wayback Machine Internet Archive is supposed to be a website that documents web pages for historical purposes. Whether the website contains accurate information or not, the whole point of the site is to neutrally maintain documented archives of websites that either change their content, end up getting deplatformed, or modify web pages. Well, MIT Technology decided to get in the ear of the Wayback Machine for not adding warning labels to certain web pages related to the coronavirus.
Reclaim The Net is reporting that the MIT Technology Review issued a complaint to the Wayback Machine back at the beginning of May, beseeching the Wayback Machine to add warning labels to archives from news sources about the coronavirus that they claim contained “misinformation”.
As mentioned in the Reclaim The Net article…
“[…] just a few weeks later, the Wayback Machine has started to add warning labels to some of its archives, while also forcing users to log in to view some of the archived content on the site.
“The warning labels are bright yellow, appear at the top of some archived pages, and tell users when a post was removed for violating a site’s content policy.”
You can see examples of the messages below, as captured by Digital Information World.
If you’re unable to read the messages in the notice, there’s a giant yellow banner that reads…
“This is an archived web page that Medium.com determined violated their Content Policy. Here is a link to it on the Live Web. In most instances, the archiving of a page is an automated process. The inclusion of a page in the Wayback Machine should not be seen as an endorsement of its content in any way.”
Expect to see more archives of certain websites and news posts being co-opted by the establishment who don’t want you viewing those pages, or want to misrepresent the information by having archive sites add “labels” to those pages.
Also, don’t be shocked if the archives of certain websites start getting deleted for “spreading misinformation”.
(Thanks for the news tip Faceless Nameless)
