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The Internet Archive is waging war on misinformation

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Re: The Internet Archive is waging war on misinformation

#81

Post by bryanrasmussen »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #39
ineedasername wrote: post #34

I like that the internet archive exists, but I don't like how they implement their opt-out policy. Sites can opt-out at any time, which I suppose is the correct thing to allow, but once they opt out then everything the Archive has gathered up to that point also goes away, which seems wrong.

It doesn’t go away, it’s just not public. This is to comply with copyright law. It’s still safely stored on disk.

Not sure about that copyright argument holding water, especially across multiple jurisdictions - I would think some argument could be made that the data was gathered with a robots.txt that allowed it and as such it can be made available.

Actually as I've noted before other archive initiatives often ignore robots.txt, for example the Danish National Archive ignores it and is legally allowed to for gathering all relevant Danish material.

Re: The Internet Archive is waging war on misinformation

#82

Post by afiori »

IfOnlyYouKnew wrote: post #21
taborj wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm mainly asking the question because the article implies[1] that they're mainly archiving Trump stuff, not in general archiving misinformation. [1] yes, I know it doesn't say it outright, but I don't think it's a stretch to get the gist.

So you're criticising the article for making an argument that you realise is happening entirely in your head?

From the article: """ Separately, as part of the effort to document the 45th president’s often-contradictory statements, the organisation is cataloguing Mr Trump’s tweets. """

I would say not entirely in his own head.

Re: The Internet Archive is waging war on misinformation

#83

Post by mjevans »

ineedasername wrote: post #34

I like that the internet archive exists, but I don't like how they implement their opt-out policy. Sites can opt-out at any time, which I suppose is the correct thing to allow, but once they opt out then everything the Archive has gathered up to that point also goes away, which seems wrong.

I believe that policy to be morally wrong. If a site WAS accessible then that old version should continue to be until an active legal tool is used to request the offline archiving rather than free access as it was at the time of observation.

Re: The Internet Archive is waging war on misinformation

#84

Post by Johnny555 »

If they really want to be trusted as a source of truth, they need to find a way to publish cryptographic signatures of every page that can be validated to prove that the page was captured when they say it was. Maybe some sort of blockchain.

Otherwise there's no reason to trust that an Internet Archive snapshot is an accurate representation of the archived page.

Re: The Internet Archive is waging war on misinformation

#85

Post by seppin »

Johnny555 wrote: post #84

If they really want to be trusted as a source of truth, they need to find a way to publish cryptographic signatures of every page that can be validated to prove that the page was captured when they say it was. Maybe some sort of blockchain. Otherwise there's no reason to trust that an Internet Archive snapshot is an accurate representation of the archived page.

> Maybe some sort of blockchain.

Or you know, any other kind of secure database.

Re: The Internet Archive is waging war on misinformation

#86

Post by philips »

Johnny555 wrote: post #84

If they really want to be trusted as a source of truth, they need to find a way to publish cryptographic signatures of every page that can be validated to prove that the page was captured when they say it was. Maybe some sort of blockchain. Otherwise there's no reason to trust that an Internet Archive snapshot is an accurate representation of the archived page.

I think a transparency log of all URLs that they put into the archive would be a good step. This at least guarantees that a URL isn't modified after getting into the archive.

Some prior art:

https://blog.golang.org/module-mirror-launch

https://www.certificate-transparency.org/what-is-ct

https://merklecounty.substack.com/p/rget-a-secure-download-u...

Re: The Internet Archive is waging war on misinformation

#87

Post by afiori »

mcantelon wrote: post #78
minikites wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay, explain to me how data in isolation communicates meaning.

The word "meaningless" is defined as "lacking any significance". The claim that data lacks any significance until someone extracts meaning from it seems most useful, apart from philosophical discussions, as a rhetorical attempt to make data secondary to interpretation and ergo something that can be waved away by belief systems.

But sometimes it is true, for example in the sense that data alone does not tell much about what is being measured and its significance.

For example high levels of cholesterol are negatively correlated to heart infarction, mostly because the population at highest risk is under medication and has so extremely low cholesterol. In this case the data itself is meaningless as it does not contain its own significance. This does not mean that we can freely discard data we don't like, it is important and useful, just not necessarily intrinsically meaningful.

A good analysis is made so that it is obvious to justify this layer of interpretation.

Re: The Internet Archive is waging war on misinformation

#88

Post by mmagin »

ineedasername wrote: post #34

I like that the internet archive exists, but I don't like how they implement their opt-out policy. Sites can opt-out at any time, which I suppose is the correct thing to allow, but once they opt out then everything the Archive has gathered up to that point also goes away, which seems wrong.

To be fair, they're operating in a situation (budget vs. volume of material to collect and share with the world) where it's necessary to minimize the human overhead of this mechanism AND to attempt to reduce their legal exposure -- sure they can get legal help from some of the very best, but mostly out of people's goodwill, they don't have the budget to be defending themselves constantly.

(Disclaimer: former IA employee, but I do not in any way speak for IA.)

Re: The Internet Archive is waging war on misinformation

#90

Post by afiori »

Swenrekcah wrote: post #64
taborj wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

that is heavy on one side, and an order or two of magnitude less on the other side I disagree with this assertion. I think both sides are equally guilty of this, but on different topics, which can make apples to apples comparisons difficult. For example, take a look at the numbers behind gun laws and deaths in the US, and you'll find misinformation propagated by the left. If you look at climate change information, yo…

I agree but I specifically mentioned the topics of Brexit and the admittetly broader ‘Trumpism’. On these topics the asymmetry is phenomenal. Take the recent ‘sharpiegate’ as an example for how little regard, contempt even, Trump has for the truth and facts.

While I agree that Trump has no qualms in lying to cover his mistakes, the left and the media have no qualms in misinterpreting what Trump says and does.
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