“This is really going to impact institutions that we take for granted,” Internet Archive director of archiving and data services Jefferson Bailey told the Standard, “like our museums, our historical societies, our public libraries, our academic libraries — just a lot of people that keep information free and accessible and online.”

  • ElysianBladeRunner@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    266
    ·
    edit-2
    13 days ago

    They want to remove anything that keeps history accountable. This anti accountability regime don’t want their sins to be remembered. Imagine the linage of these assholes. How they will be looked down upon because their ancestors are are bigots and liars.

  • scops@reddthat.com
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    182
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    13 days ago

    Elon Musk will go to any length to scrub this image from the Internet:

  • kn0wmad1c@programming.dev
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    162
    ·
    13 days ago

    The government funded them $345,000.

    This is 100% spiteful and not an example of “wasteful government spending”

    • rusticus@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      31
      ·
      13 days ago

      We can easily crowdfund this. Especially the parts regarding Republican fuckery.

        • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          6
          ·
          edit-2
          12 days ago

          It sucks because the goal of all of this is privatization. They literally want regular people to pick up the “slack” (that they themselves artificially created) and fund things that are supposed to be public services.

          So when they cut shit like this, our options are basically to: let it die, or do the exact thing that they want. Either way, it’s a win for them. It fucking sucks.

        • rusticus@lemm.ee
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          4
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          13 days ago

          Just join the party? Everybody knows the US is a steaming shitshow more than usual.

    • CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      12 days ago

      Spitefulness is the point. Trying to make progressives cry. “Owning the libs”.

      When donvict talked about being “your” retribution, he was throwing red meat to complete dumbasses because this is the kind of shit he is planning for them. Performative bullshit that will do nothing for the base, and certainly nothing for normal Americans.

      • baltakatei@sopuli.xyz
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        8
        ·
        12 days ago

        I doubt the Library of Alexandria had permission from all rights holders to hold copies of many books. /s

    • ours@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      16
      ·
      13 days ago

      Recent inconvinient history. They love to dig up ancient “glory days” (e.g., Ancient Rome, Teutonic knights…) and attach them to their image.

      • pipes@sh.itjust.works
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        18
        ·
        13 days ago

        They’re not meticulous historians though. LGBTQ people were more accepted in the Roman Republic (and in ancient Greek) than today.

        “Caius Julius Caesar: husband to all the wives, wife to all the husbands.” was a saying that my Latin professor taught us in school.

        • Yigru Zeltil@lemm.ee
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          8
          ·
          12 days ago

          They’re not meticulous historians though. LGBTQ people were more accepted in the Roman Republic (and in ancient Greek) than today.

          “Caius Julius Caesar: husband to all the wives, wife to all the husbands.” was a saying that my Latin professor taught us in school.

          Being AMAB and bottom was stigmatized to the point their swearing system revolved around emasculation threats, so that’s different from what the queer movement of today aims for…

          • AbsentBird@lemm.ee
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            7
            ·
            edit-2
            12 days ago

            Our swearing system in modern English revolves around sex, violence and infidelity, but our society is also kinda into those things. Societies are complicated.

            Edit: also sometimes people still say shit about bottoms when they curse.

          • pipes@sh.itjust.works
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            3
            ·
            12 days ago

            I agree that it should not be the goal for any modern civilization to copy Rome. They were not a just society, they had slavery for starters, but Roman citizens enjoyed a lot of personal liberty. If you were dirt poor you would not even have the time for a “nonproductive” relationship, if you’ll excuse my expression. Kids were a resource more than a cost.

            I’m not an expert but I think “stigmatized” is too strong a word in this context, I’m sure they did joke around if a rumour or a hunch was spread about a person’s romantic affairs by the people who hated them for their success or by their enemies, I’m not sure they really cared that much otherwise. Of course before the christian emperors came along.

          • andros_rex@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            2
            ·
            12 days ago

            Being bottom was really only stigmatized if you were bottoming for a social inferior.

            Giving a woman head was more “gay”/stigmatized than taking it up the bum, unless maybe it was a slave penetrating you.

            There’s no room or recognition for lesbians really. Trans issues are a tangled web, as they always are.

        • ours@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          12 days ago

          They don’t care. Just like with religious texts, they’ll shop around for the things they like and ignore those they don’t.

  • SerotoninSwells@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    104
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    13 days ago

    “Those who control the present, control the past and those who control the past control the future.”

    George Orwell, 1984

    • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      edit-2
      12 days ago

      I think people are going to find that, with the existence of the internet, it’s a lot more difficult to completely remove things from the collective memory. Won’t stop them from trying though.

      Unless they pull some “Great Firewall” shit. And even then… That said, it does seem like they only need ~30% of the population to believe it, and they have that shit locked down.

  • PunkRockSportsFan@fanaticus.social
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    62
    ·
    13 days ago

    They are scared because the people don’t want things to go back to the way they were.

    The people want them gone.

    And it’s 100% justified.

    They know they deserve to be handed over to the mob.

  • Rhoeri@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    54
    ·
    13 days ago

    Elon Musk is what you’d get if you gave the illusion of personality to a 4Chan troll.

    • whotookkarl@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      19
      ·
      13 days ago

      He’s the poster child for scared, greedy, paranoid nepo babies shielded from reality by wealth inheritance and wealth inequality, incapable of empathy turning him into a fascist bigot idiot trying to kill other people to hoard more money.

  • Phoenicianpirate@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    53
    ·
    13 days ago

    I am not now, nor have I ever been a Christian, but shit like this makes me go Jesus Fucking Christ.

    Archive.org is a critical repository of knowledge and archiving the internet. Elon has cut nothing, but damaged a ton. It is kinda incredible how many damage he has done.

  • obbeel@lemmy.eco.br
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    48
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    13 days ago

    Both the Internet Archive and Wikipedia are really important. I guess the way is to make alternatives or datahoard in these difficult times.

    • pulsewidth@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      17
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      13 days ago

      Why make alternatives when these fantastic organizations already exist? It’s not the first time they’ve come under fire and it definitely won’t be the last.

      If vandalous cunts like Musk wish for them to go away and will de-fund them to that end, best thing we can do is donate to them and spread the word they need help.

      • lemonaz@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        13
        ·
        edit-2
        13 days ago

        Why make alternatives when these fantastic organizations already exist? It’s not the first time they’ve come under fire and it definitely won’t be the last.

        You’ve answered your own question: because one day they might not take the fire and collapse. It’s like saying it’s not the first time your old HDD has been showing bad sectors and definitely won’t be the last. That’s all the more reason to make a backup!

        I agree with you that we should donate to them and make them more people-funded, but ideally you want that taken care of through public funding coming out of taxes. You can’t just sustain every single entity through individual donations.

        • pulsewidth@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          12 days ago

          I feel this is a bad analogy, Wikipedia and IA are not a hard drive spinning in a server rack, they are community projects - made for the public good. They do not face the same issues. The problems they repeatedly face are always the same - funding (which is largely solved) and the issue discussed on topic - legal.

          The reason it’s important to defend the IA/Wikipedia and pile our resources behind them instead of splitting off new projects is that if they lose legal cases, any other projects with the same or similar goals will face exactly the same attacks and results. Unless you intend to host your replacement on the moon.

          • lemonaz@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            12 days ago

            Fair enough. In that case, let me amend my prescription:

            Whether or not it’s the same project is immaterial — it’s about redundancy of the data, hosting it in multiple countries, in such a way that if one country turns authoritarian and wants to burn it down, they’ll be backed up in 10 other countries. The community as well should be international and redundant in a way that allows for responsibilities to shift if push comes to shove.

            Ultimately it’s about not being vulnerable to one country having one bad day.

            Unless you intend to host your replacement on the moon.

            No, just countries that don’t want to destroy IA/Wikipedia. If there’s none of them left, then we’ll have much bigger problems.

      • obbeel@lemmy.eco.br
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        12 days ago

        I think that if we work together as people we can achieve more than just a couple of good organizations that can fade. That doesn’t mean I wouldn’t donate to Wikipedia or Internet Archive. The goal isn’t to compete, it isn’t a business. Just to make things stronger.

        • pulsewidth@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          12 days ago

          I think that if we work together as people we can achieve more than just a couple of good organizations that can fade.

          That is exactly what the Internet Archive and Wikipedia are - a bunch of people who wanted to achieve a shared goal in an open, free, and democratic manner.

          As soon as you start building something to replace what they’ve made you’ll quickly realize what they did - it’s very big, so it needa layers of governance, and you don’t want mismanagement by any one person or handful of small people, so you incorporate it and make a charter of your mandates, policies, procedures for stakeholders to vote for removal of people causing issues, clauses stating the data and corporation are owned by your non-profit entity and may never be for-profit… And pretty soon you have yourself an institution.

      • obbeel@lemmy.eco.br
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        7
        ·
        13 days ago

        How does it work? Does it download all Wikipedia or any other website I point it to (like Project Gutenberg as it says on the website) pages or does it download it when I access the page?

        • itsbaljeet@lemm.ee
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          13
          ·
          13 days ago

          You get a .zim file that is either just text on the pages or text + pictures. One I have is like 109GB~ w/ pictures. There’s many others to choose from as well I believe not just the ones I mentioned

    • Skunk@piefed.social
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      7
      ·
      13 days ago

      Exactly what I was thinking. Relocate it to Western Europe, in a country like France they would be showered in public money from local, regional and national funds, then arts preservation funds, then whatever else funds.

      It’s easy to see when watching European cinema, a film like Flow has 3 minutes of “thank you” logos at the beginning, for all the public funding from various regions and actors.

  • courageousstep@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    41
    ·
    13 days ago

    I just want to shake conservatives and ask “Why doesn’t your government want you to know things??”

    • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      edit-2
      12 days ago

      It won’t do shit. These are the same people that wouldn’t shut the fuck up about “FEMA death camps” when Obama was in office.

      This is advanced brain rot.

  • hedhoncho@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    39
    ·
    12 days ago

    Ugh some asshole who’s only going to live a century depriving an endless future of historical knowledge. Musk needs to be detained and imprisoned.