The IA has really lost its reputation as an archive by choosing to remove content down for political purposes. They see themselves as publishers rather than an archive.
I found: (1) they recently removed KiwiFarms; (2) in 2020, they began labeling certain pages with "fact checks"; (3) they remove content by request of the site owner or by copyright complaint.
Of those, (2) seems the most political, but it's not removing content. Was there something else you had in mind?
An archive should have everything of what is being archived, legalese notwithstanding: The good, the bad, the beautiful, the ugly, everything. E v e r y t h i n g . If it doesn't have everything, it's not an archive.
The content was clearly libelous and defamatory, which is pretty illegal. In some countries it would also count as harassement.
That is incorrect. In the US, the _act_ of libel is illegal and the author of it can get into legal trouble. And a publisher might if they knowingly published false information, which is harder to prove. But the libelous _content_ itself is not illegal and is in fact protected by the First Amendment.
> Supporters of the Drop Kiwi Farms campaign celebrated the Internet Archive’s decision. “Internet heroes right here,” tweeted Yonah Gerber, who urged the Archive to remove the site. Kiwi Farms is known for collecting and publicizing personal details about targets it holds in contempt, many of whom are transgender women like Sorrenti. While the site ostensibly discourages direct harassment, Sorrenti has faced swatting attacks and persistent threats during her campaign, and other targets have had similarly ugly experiences. Kiwi Farms has been allegedly linked with three suicides, including an emulator developer who blamed the site for a relentless harassment operation soon before their death. [1]
Yeah, I have to say that I recognize nuance and am okay with archive.org nixing content like the above.
[1] https://www.theverge.com/2022/9/7/23341051/kiwi-farms-intern...
The emulator dev was never the subject of any kiwifarms discussion. Their letter blamed the state of mental health in America, Donald Trump, and kiwi farms. If that’s the bar for a site being pulled offline, then all social media should be.
I think that puritanism and archivism are not compatible.
They also removed ISIS stuff https://archive.org/post/1033012/constant-removal-of-isis-vi...
Removing evidence of war-crimes and disallowing future historians from accessing such content in the future is not a policy that I would expect from an archive.
If you know the right people with the right political views, even the IA will capitulate.