Apr 13, 2026 7:00 AM

The Internet's Most Powerful Archiving Tool Is in Peril

As major news outlets cut off the Wayback Machine, journalists and advocacy groups are rallying to protect the Internet Archive’s vast collection of web pages.

Photograph: Carlos Avila Gonzalez/Getty Images

This month, USA Today published an excellent report that revealed how US Immigrations and Customs Enforcement delayed disclosing key information about the impacts of its detainment policies. The authors used the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine to compile and analyze detention statistics from ICE and track how the agency had changed under the Trump administration. The story is one of countless examples of how the Wayback Machine, which crawls and preserves web pages, has helped preserve information for the public good. It was also, Wayback Machine director Mark Graham says, “a little ironic.”

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Comments (9)

Join the WIRED community to add comments.

KERWYNKUS
LILYFISH
Donate. I'm working poor yet I donate what I can monthly to Internet Archive, Wikipedia, and Mozilla Foundation. Like most of us today, the internet is a core part of my life and I lose so much when it's treated as a commodity instead of a commons. So I put my money where my mouth is
AB101
KATEKNIBBS
WIRED Staff
Hello! You can see Wired's robots.txt page by going to wired.com/robots.txt. We allow the Internet Archive's crawler. (You can also see other outlets' robots.txt files by typing in the URL manually, if you want to check other publications.) I did not sign the petition because I frequently cover the Internet Archive as a reporter. Can't speak on my colleagues. Thank you for reading
NICK_W
PHYL
Seems doable, except for the possibility these publications may find this an easy fix to prevent future litigation w/regards to past editorial decisions. Self-serving vs a service to society: What would you choose, if you owned the Times?
LAURA_SINN

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Kate Knibbs is a senior writer at WIRED. She covers prediction markets, the future of media, and how AI is changing the internet. She’s also interested in digital grey markets and regulatory battles over new tech. She is based in Chicago. Send tips to kate_knibbs@wired.com, or reach her on Signal ... Read More

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Topicsarchives artificial intelligence bots The New York Times Electronic Frontier Foundation

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