This week’s New Yorker had a great article about the Internet Archive. Jill Lepore, the author, leads this piece with the story of last year’s downing of the Malaysia Airlines plane over eastern Ukraine. A Russian-backed separatist gloated via social media about downing the plane but once the news hit that the plane was not a military aircraft, the separatist deleted his post to hide the evidence. However, the Internet Archive captured the separatist’s tweet, providing that libraries and archives, whether digital or analog, play a critical role not only in preserving history but also in current events.
The article also raises many fascinating questions about how copyright affects the Internet. Lastly, check out Memento, an initiative lead by Herbert Van de Sompel–it is a Chrome extension that lets you see a website at a specific date.
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