The Internet Archive (Wayback Machine) is Under Attack—And You Should Care

In case you missed it, something pretty important has been happening, though you’d never know if you’re relying on legacy mainstream media to keep you informed. The Internet Archive (Wayback Machine), our trusty online library of, well, everything, has been under some major fire. And I mean, we’re talking about Orwell’s 1984 levels of weirdness.

What’s Going On at Archive.org?

Since early October, if you tried visiting archive.org, you probably ran into some funky issues. Pages were there one second, gone the next. The reason? A huge Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack, one of the largest in recent memory. These attacks are like the internet’s version of spamming someone’s phone to the point they can’t even pick it up to answer a call. The attack is a constant series of bots (called botnets) to send an overwhelming amount of requests to the target system. This bombardment of traffic makes it difficult or impossible for legitimate users to access the targeted services.

Now, why should we care? Because the Archive doesn’t just hold copies of old memes; it preserves internet history, ensuring we remember things as they actually happened—not as companies or governments might want us to remember. Basically, it’s our defense against selective memory or the rewriting of our true history.

Preserving the Past, Even When It’s Inconvenient

The Internet Archive is more than just a digital attic; it’s a safeguard against sneaky changes that can rewrite our past. Remember when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) made a subtle tweak to the definition of “vaccine”? Originally, it was described as “a product that stimulates a person’s immune system to produce immunity to a specific disease,” but now it reads, “a preparation that stimulates the body’s immune system against a disease.” Sneaky, right? Thank goodness the Archive had our backs, or that change might’ve gone unnoticed.

The archive is used to point out when evil people or groups post something that goes counter to what really happened.

For researchers or people who care about such things, the archive is pure gold, providing proof—snapshots, downloads, all things past related—to challenge any “oops, we never said that” moments down the road.

The “Black Hole” of October’s Memory

In a particularly unnerving twist, the Internet Archive announced that content from the first three weeks of October is, well, missing in action. And guess what? This just so happens to be one of the most politically charged times in recent history, with issues like abortion, healthcare, and social rights front and center. With October’s records gone, it’s a lot harder to hold anyone accountable for whatever they might’ve said. Could it be that Democratic Party operatives saw the writing on the wall and wanted to remove some history before they were discovered when Donald Trump won the White House?

A Battle Over Digital Memory

This isn’t just about October. Imagine a future where you can’t look back at what actually happened—only what you’re allowed to remember by a future Ingsoc-style government. And this isn’t far-fetched. Consider recent headlines claiming that former President Donald Trump supports a national abortion ban or opposes in vitro fertilization (IVF)—both of which he’s never explicitly said. Without independent archives, separating fact from fiction becomes a full-time job. The evil folks on the Left would be able to get away with murder… literally.

Take, for example, the unconstitutional January 6 Select Committee that was formed to act as election interference against Donald Trump. The Democrats on that committee withheld exculpatory evidence, manufactured evidence out of thin air, changed events, or made up events that never happened, all to make Trump look bad enough that Americans would not vote for him. And then, right before the Republicans were to take over the majority of the House of Representatives, the Democrats deleted all of their digital data from the committee’s hearings. Without the archive, a lot of that dark history would be gone. They certainly have a motive to attack the archive.

Then there’s social media, where posts, tweets, and public statements vanish or get edited faster than you can say “fact-check.” By October 8th, our digital landscape turned into a kind of “black hole” with a historical record that’s barely holding up.

Can We Really Trust the Official Record?

Now if all we have left are “official” records, we’re in a bit of a jam. One example? President Biden reportedly made a comment about Trump supporters that didn’t exactly sound like a compliment by referring to them as “garbage.” But later, the transcript of the president’s words was reworked, punctuated differently, and, let’s just say, “toned down.” Without something like the Internet Archive to verify these moments, how can we tell what was actually said? And that’s the point of those who wish to change and/or remove proof of the past.

At the end of the day, losing an independent record keeper like the Internet Archive feels downright Orwellian. As history starts to look more like a flexible Google Doc, it’s up to us to keep track of what really happened.

#internetarchive #digitalhistory #protectthepast