Technology

37806 readers

100 users here now

A nice place to discuss rumors, happenings, innovations, and challenges in the technology sphere. We also welcome discussions on the intersections of technology and society. If it’s technological news or discussion of technology, it probably belongs here.

Remember the overriding ethos on Beehaw: Be(e) Nice. Each user you encounter here is a person, and should be treated with kindness (even if they’re wrong, or use a Linux distro you don’t like). Personal attacks will not be tolerated.

Subcommunities on Beehaw:

This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

204

The Internet Is Failing The Website Preservation Test (archive.ph)

submitted 2 years ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

87 comments fedilink hide all child comments

This is something that keeps me worried at night. Unlike other historical artefacts like pottery, vellum writing, or stone tablets, information on the Internet can just blink into nonexistence when the server hosting it goes offline. This makes it difficult for future anthropologists who want to study our history and document the different Internet epochs. For my part, I always try to send any news article I see to an archival site (like archive.ph) to help collectively preserve our present so it can still be seen by others in the future.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 years ago

Inability to edit or delete anything also fundamentally has a lot of problems on its own. Accidentally post a picture with a piece of mail in the background and catch it a second after sending? Too late, anyone who looks now has your home address. Child shares too much online and parent wants to undo that? No can do, it's there forever now. Post a link and later learn it was misinformation and want to take it down? Sucks to be you, or anyone else that sees it.

There's always a risk of that when posting anything online, but that doesn't mean systems should be designed to lean into that by default.