For nearly 30 years, the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine has worked alongside journalists, researchers, and the public to ensure that the web—and the news it carries—remains part of our shared historical record. Today, on World Press Freedom Day, that mission faces a new and urgent challenge.

Some news organizations, including The New York Times, The Atlantic, and USA Today, are blocking their sites from being preserved in the Wayback Machine over unfounded concerns about AI scraping. As Andrew Deck from Nieman Lab noted noted in Marketplace, “None of the publishers were able to point to a particular AI company or other kinds of direct evidence that their content had already been scraped by the Wayback Machine.” As a result, important journalism is at risk of disappearing from the public record. More than 200 journalists have added their support to keeping the news in the Wayback Machine.

In response, Fight for the Future has launched a public petition calling on news leaders to work with the Internet Archive to ensure their reporting remains accessible for generations to come.

Take action

On this World Press Freedom Day, we invite you to stand with journalists and with the future of the historical record. Add your name to the public petition and join the call for news organizations to work with the Internet Archive to keep the news in the Wayback Machine.