The ever-widening internet memory hole

[UltraBudgie]

This is sort of ominous. The service that snapshots newspapers and other websites, archive.org, was hit by an attack last month. While the site is back "online", I've just heard that it is not showing snapshots of anything after October 10th:

Beneath the headlines, there are technical events taking place that are fundamentally affecting the ability of any historian even to look back and tell what is happening. Incredibly, the service Archive.org which has been around since 1994 has stopped taking images of content on all platforms. For the first time in 30 years, we have gone a long swath of time – since October 8-10 – since this service has chronicled the life of the Internet in real time.

As of this writing, we have no way to verify content that has been posted for three weeks of October leading to the days of the most contentious and consequential election of our lifetimes. Crucially, this is not about partisanship or ideological discrimination. No websites on the Internet are being archived in ways that are available to users. In effect, the whole memory of our main information system is just a big black hole right now.

Source: They Are Scrubbing the Internet Right Now

This is called the "memory hole" effect -- where the internet can rewrite or remove history, leaving no trace. There have also been other changes, too -- videos reported inaccessible at YouTube, search results disappearing or turning into duplicate garbage after a few dozen "trustworthy" results, content hidden among mountains of AI-generated spam, and more.

Google used to allow access to "cached" versions of sites, accessible when the original page had been removed or couldn't be loaded; that feature is now gone.

The timing of this is suspect, indeed, and it's gotten much worse very quickly, but this has been a creeping incremental problem for years. Searching for historical events has become more and more difficult, and it seems most people just resort to Wikipedia or other "approved narratives". Anyone have any research advice?

Will the history that is written about Election 2024 be accurate? How will we know?

[putnam6]

They? you ask, probably the usual suspects or a combination. China Russia Iran etc. or quasi allies corrupt entities like scammers in India and elsewhere data phishing 

All I know is one can watch virtually any college football game for free on YouTube now. Yeah occasionally the YouTube PTB pulls the plug on a channel and another will pop up, it has to be driving them bugchit. Reminds me of the efforts to curb intellectual property theft from China's consumer products manufacturing. One would get shut down and 3 would open, very hard and expensive to get them shut down, easier, cheaper, and more effective to educate the end consumer.

it's no coincidence the channel names sound very Western Pacific. 

[UltraBudgie]

All I know is one can watch virtually any college football game for free on YouTube now.

You should try watching professional foosball. I think you'd appreciate the artistry of their deflection techniques, on an aesthetic level.

[Sirius]

This reminds me of the Mandela effect, instead of posting a redaction every body deleted their posts when his death was published early mistakenly.

Printed media had it's benefits, but then information wouldn't have leaked out in the first place.

[Maxmars]

The "internetz" was never envisioned to be a history app by those who now make it their business to cull, curate, and repackage historical knowledge...

Saying it's China, Russia, the UK, or the US' fault is like blaming Mr. Xincorn Smith of Rucon Wisconsin for global warming.  They quite literally know not what they do.

Someone is leveraging the excuse of perpetual profiteering from intellectual property, to purge and reframe the past...
inadvertently recorded by the very people who are "too stupid" to 'know better.'

If there is one thing that is as important as 'free speech' it's recorded history.

Problem growing

[UltraBudgie]

Saying it's China, Russia, the UK, or the US' fault is like blaming Mr. Xincorn Smith of Rucon Wisconsin for global warming.  They quite literally know not what they do.

Okay, I found this in Kaukauna, Wisconsin. I'll see if I can track down this Smith guy. Maybe we can get a license plate off the truck. Thanks for the tip!

[Maxmars]

Dang!... loose lips....

Sorry Mr. Smith. 

[Sirius]

Yhea, screw that guy. Let's get him.  I want my straws back.

[putnam6]

You should try watching professional foosball. I think you'd appreciate the artistry of their deflection techniques, on an aesthetic level.

Do they play another professional football?

after all, they get paid rather well at the college level now

My original point remains there are loads of entities state-sponsored, foreign, or domestic probing the internet, manipulating search engines, etc. Any slight advantage is an advantage nonetheless. If the aforementioned "they" can 
evade YouTube why not screw with Google or other search engines algorithms? 

Let's not forget the bugaboo of AI, who knows what its capabilities or motives are? Perhaps it looks at filtering history as benefiting humanity or the best way to control it...

or perhaps it's just tired of watching putnam6 search WWII archives and draining the bandwith

[putnam6]

The "internetz" was never envisioned to be a history app by those who now make it their business to cull, curate, and repackage historical knowledge...

Saying it's China, Russia, the UK, or the US' fault is like blaming Mr. Xincorn Smith of Rucon Wisconsin for global warming.  They quite literally know not what they do.

Someone is leveraging the excuse of perpetual profiteering from intellectual property, to purge and reframe the past...
inadvertently recorded by the very people who are "too stupid" to 'know better.'

If there is one thing that is as important as 'free speech' it's recorded history.

Problem growing

All I was suggesting was Maxmars was #1 the usual suspect(s) and#2 the fact that it seems numerous entities state-sponsored or not with Asian-derived names can evade YouTube restrictions repeatedly. If for no other reason for the chaos, or the enjoyment of watching football and followers. But primarily it shows security is leaky as a sieve

 To erase history off the internet has to be a monumental task perhaps but it could be "look at our stuff" first. Every source on the webz wants thier content to pop on the first search page. 

Otherwise, we have evil corporate Google changing algorithms to pop what they want us to look at.