4 ms·

Censorship on the Internet Archive by requiring login

10 points by drummer 6y ago

hedora 6y ago
How hard is it to copy the internet archive, assuming you have the network bandwidth and storage? Centralized control of it has always been a single point of failure.
- msla 6y ago
  It's big enough you'd need to arrange to go over there with trucks full of data storage and copy it over in person. It's very large and constantly growing, especially subsets like the Wayback Machine, but I'd guess the video archives are growing faster than they'd allow you to copy them out. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Archive https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Archive > the archive's over 48 petabytes of digitized materials. ... and they'd likely have to rate-limit your downloads after a certain point so you don't saturate the connection and cut off everyone else.
knaik94 6y ago
Unless the search results themselves are hidden without a login, I don't see how this is censorship. The point of the archive is to preserve information for the foreseeable future. Isn't that the opposite of censorship? It seems more like a way to limit the Internet Archive being used to spread bad and harmful information. The Archive didn't delete the content. To imply that the IA is going to start being politically motivated in removing the content misses the entire purpose of what the IA stands for. Propaganda and other forms of misinformation is worth preserving and studying. Requiring a login stops no one from access to the videos, it's a free sign up.
- drummer 6y ago
  Considering that a few seconds in delay of loading a website has an impact on visitors staying, what do you think happens when they are required to jump through registration hoops to get to the content? The thumbnails are also blurred. Why? These are tactics to censor content in a subtle way without outright deleting or hiding it, which would be too obvious.
CodeWriter23 6y ago
Article doesn’t even delve into the possibility of this being used to track dissenters. Not that I think the Internet Archive is in that business, but the mere existence of such a list is to invite a subpoena.
RunningDroid 6y ago
>It’s a shame that even the Internet Archive, of all websites, is now apparently also listening to Big Tech when it comes to what information should be allowed on the Internet. I personally think China or the US government are more likely suspects given they can pass laws that effect the Internet Archive.
- drummer 6y ago
  I highly doubt it; the video of the doctors in question was not censored by the US government. And the Internet Archive is already entirely blocked in China.

10 points by drummer 6y ago

How hard is it to copy the internet archive, assuming you have the network bandwidth and storage? Centralized control of it has always been a single point of failure.

msla 6y ago
It's big enough you'd need to arrange to go over there with trucks full of data storage and copy it over in person. It's very large and constantly growing, especially subsets like the Wayback Machine, but I'd guess the video archives are growing faster than they'd allow you to copy them out. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Archive https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Archive > the archive's over 48 petabytes of digitized materials. ... and they'd likely have to rate-limit your downloads after a certain point so you don't saturate the connection and cut off everyone else.

knaik94 6y ago

Unless the search results themselves are hidden without a login, I don't see how this is censorship. The point of the archive is to preserve information for the foreseeable future. Isn't that the opposite of censorship? It seems more like a way to limit the Internet Archive being used to spread bad and harmful information. The Archive didn't delete the content. To imply that the IA is going to start being politically motivated in removing the content misses the entire purpose of what the IA stands for. Propaganda and other forms of misinformation is worth preserving and studying. Requiring a login stops no one from access to the videos, it's a free sign up.

drummer 6y ago
Considering that a few seconds in delay of loading a website has an impact on visitors staying, what do you think happens when they are required to jump through registration hoops to get to the content? The thumbnails are also blurred. Why? These are tactics to censor content in a subtle way without outright deleting or hiding it, which would be too obvious.

CodeWriter23 6y ago

Article doesn’t even delve into the possibility of this being used to track dissenters. Not that I think the Internet Archive is in that business, but the mere existence of such a list is to invite a subpoena.

RunningDroid 6y ago

>It’s a shame that even the Internet Archive, of all websites, is now apparently also listening to Big Tech when it comes to what information should be allowed on the Internet. I personally think China or the US government are more likely suspects given they can pass laws that effect the Internet Archive.

drummer 6y ago
I highly doubt it; the video of the doctors in question was not censored by the US government. And the Internet Archive is already entirely blocked in China.