Wayback Machine Latest Victim of Big Tech Consolidation and Censorship
The promise of an internet modeled around democratized access to information
is quickly eroding before our very eyes as the Wayback Machine falls prey to
censorship creep and major tech sector consolidations take us to the point
of no return
by Raul Diego
May 22nd, 2020
By Raul Diego
In what is turning out to be something of a latter-day dot com bust, many
small to medium-sized tech startups are teetering on the edge of oblivion as
the deliberate economic shutdown eats away at their capitalization and opens
the door for the biggest fish in the tech space and others to pick the
ripest fruit from the tech start up tree.
As opposed to the original, this start up bust is accompanied by a very
precise view of market opportunities for interested buyers and investors,
brought on by an equally deliberate reshaping of workplace conditions and
societal interactions which are driving companies like Microsoft to
"aggregate capabilities" in "cloud computing, collaboration, access
management, and other business continuity tools that saw a surge in demand
during regional lockdowns."
The ride-share behemoth, Uber, for example, is reportedly in talks to
acquire Grubhub and expand its food-delivery operations, while Microsoft
just completed its purchase of robotic automation company, Softomotive. One
global research and advisory firm that focuses on IT and finance has even
put out a guide "on how tech startups can best prepare for being acquired by
a larger company," revealing that just 13 companies accounted for a full 60
percent of the $150 billion raised by tech startups between March and April.
Signs that yet another massive wave of consolidation in the technology
sector is on the horizon and is already raising concerns throughout the
industry, but the fact that it is occurring in tandem with a larger push by
outfits like Twitter, Facebook and other huge tech players to stifle freedom
of online expression and association should make us pay closer attention to
the dynamics at play.
Censorship creep
Under the guise of facilitating conversation, Twitter unveiled changes to
the reply feature that ostensibly gives users more control, but in reality,
it broadens the ability to censor content. The new format, still in testing
mode, will allow users to select who can and cannot reply to their tweets.
This, of course, presents a serious problem from the vantage point of free
flowing interaction and gives even more power to the most popular accounts
to stifle undesirable feedback, leaving their viewpoints publicly
unchallenged.
Another seemingly innocuous development in the last few days was the
announcement made by popular podcaster Joe Rogan on his move to Spotify. The
comedian and UFC commentator's immensely popular podcast has been freely
available on YouTube and other platforms since its inception, but his
multi-million-dollar exclusive licensing deal with the music platform will
further cloister content behind a single outfit and likely diminish its
reach and propagation.
Perhaps the most concerning, however, are the changes taking place at one of
the most important research tools on the Internet and, up to now, a
venerable tool for online transparency: The Wayback Machine.
Misplaced century
In the campy 1970s futuristic movie "Rollerball," starring a young James
Caan as a superstar athlete at the twilight of his celebrated career, there
is a curious scene in which his character, Jonathan E, visits an archive
where the entire knowledge base of humanity is stored. The man in charge of
the quantum computer-like machine mentions, in passing, that due to some
unknown glitch, the records containing the whole of the thirteenth century
have been lost.
Such a predicament is, no doubt, much closer to becoming a real possibility
as more and more of humanity's knowledge is accumulated in massive digital
repositories. The danger is not only in the outright loss of stored data as
a result of technical malfunctions but also in the greater ability to
execute historical revisionism and misrepresenting facts to future
generations. Wikipedia - a widely consulted online encyclopedia - is already
guilty of this. But, now the Wayback Internet archive is trending down this
slippery slope with its recently implemented labeling of snapshot results as
potential disinformation.
As a former editor, Elliot Leavy, warns in an article addressing the changes
at the Wayback Machine site, "if we continue to censor the past, attaching
intent to some but not to others, we will be unable to evaluate anything at
all." Indeed, the new measures instituted at the behest of MIT's Technology
Review over worries of COVID-19 hoaxes do not bode well for the survival of
historical accuracy and a discerning populace.
The promise of the internet as an "information superhighway" modeled around
democratized access to information is quickly eroding before our very eyes,
as the measures are taken to curb the COVID-19 pandemic are being used to
restrict unfettered knowledge. Together with the swift consolidation of tech
companies that own the means to distribute and create the platforms we are
obliged to use, we might soon find ourselves feeling like Jonathan E did
when he realized that his once greatest supporters and benefactors were only
looking to push him out the door and find a more pliable and less curious
superstar.
