{"id":30135,"date":"2026-02-18T00:57:47","date_gmt":"2026-02-18T00:57:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.archive.org\/?p=30135"},"modified":"2026-02-18T00:57:47","modified_gmt":"2026-02-18T00:57:47","slug":"wayback-machine-director-pushes-back","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.archive.org\/2026\/02\/18\/wayback-machine-director-pushes-back\/","title":{"rendered":"Wayback Machine Director Pushes Back on AI Scraping Fears Driving Archive Blocks"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class='__iawmlf-post-loop-links' style='display:none;' data-iawmlf-post-links='[{&quot;id&quot;:11270,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/www.niemanlab.org\\\/2026\\\/01\\\/news-publishers-limit-internet-archive-access-due-to-ai-scraping-concerns&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/web.archive.org\\\/web\\\/20260218003724\\\/https:\\\/\\\/www.niemanlab.org\\\/2026\\\/01\\\/news-publishers-limit-internet-archive-access-due-to-ai-scraping-concerns\\\/&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-02-18 00:58:07&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-02-19 00:58:28&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:403},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-02-20 01:13:23&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:403},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-02-21 01:33:21&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:403},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-02-22 01:35:44&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:403},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-02-23 01:41:09&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:403},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-02-24 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06:17:25&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:403},&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;},{&quot;id&quot;:11271,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/www.techdirt.com\\\/2026\\\/02\\\/13\\\/news-publishers-are-now-blocking-the-internet-archive-and-we-may-all-regret-it&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/www.techdirt.com\\\/2026\\\/02\\\/13\\\/news-publishers-are-now-blocking-the-internet-archive-and-we-may-all-regret-it\\\/&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:null,&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;},{&quot;id&quot;:11272,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/www.techdirt.com\\\/2026\\\/02\\\/17\\\/preserving-the-web-is-not-the-problem-losing-it-is&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/www.techdirt.com\\\/2026\\\/02\\\/17\\\/preserving-the-web-is-not-the-problem-losing-it-is\\\/&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:null,&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;}]'><\/div>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.archive.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/wayback_logo-scaled.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"453\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.archive.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/wayback_logo-1024x453.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-27029\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blog.archive.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/wayback_logo-1024x453.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/blog.archive.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/wayback_logo-300x133.jpg 300w, https:\/\/blog.archive.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/wayback_logo-768x340.jpg 768w, https:\/\/blog.archive.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/wayback_logo-1536x679.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/blog.archive.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/wayback_logo-2048x906.jpg 2048w, https:\/\/blog.archive.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/wayback_logo-624x276.jpg 624w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>As reported by <strong>Nieman Lab<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.niemanlab.org\/2026\/01\/news-publishers-limit-internet-archive-access-due-to-ai-scraping-concerns\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">last month<\/a>, some major media organizations\u2014including <em>The New York Times<\/em>, <em>The Guardian<\/em>, and Reddit\u2014have started <strong>blocking the Wayback Machine from archiving their sites <\/strong>over unfounded concerns about AI scraping.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Last week, tech writer <strong>Mike Masnick<\/strong> (<em>Techdirt<\/em>) <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.techdirt.com\/2026\/02\/13\/news-publishers-are-now-blocking-the-internet-archive-and-we-may-all-regret-it\/\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">explained<\/a> why this is &#8220;a mistake we\u2019re going to regret for generations.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Today, <strong>Mark Graham<\/strong>, director of the Wayback Machine, has <a href=\"https:\/\/www.techdirt.com\/2026\/02\/17\/preserving-the-web-is-not-the-problem-losing-it-is\/\">published a response to the Nieman Lab reporting<\/a>, pushing back on the media organizations&#8217; concerns about the Wayback Machine being a backdoor to AI scraping. Graham writes:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p><em>&#8220;These concerns are understandable, but unfounded&#8230; like others on the web today, we expend significant time and effort working to prevent such abuse.&#8221;<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.techdirt.com\/2026\/02\/17\/preserving-the-web-is-not-the-problem-losing-it-is\/\">Read the post<\/a> to learn how Graham is working to protect the integrity of the Wayback Machine, and why limiting web archiving threatens our shared digital history.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As reported by Nieman Lab last month, some major media organizations\u2014including The New York Times, The Guardian, and Reddit\u2014have started blocking the Wayback Machine from archiving their sites over unfounded [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":366,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[249,16],"tags":[347],"class_list":["post-30135","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-announcements","category-wayback-machine","tag-wayback-machine"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.archive.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30135","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.archive.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.archive.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.archive.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/366"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.archive.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30135"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.archive.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30135\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30136,"href":"https:\/\/blog.archive.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30135\/revisions\/30136"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.archive.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.archive.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.archive.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}