this post was submitted on 01 Sep 2024
328 points (91.4% liked)

Technology

59378 readers
2959 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.


Our Rules


  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related content.
  3. Be excellent to each another!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed

Approved Bots


founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 160 points 2 months ago (10 children)

What? No. What utter nonsense.

I should be able to remove a website that I created and paid for without there being some silly law that I have to archive it.

As the owner, it's up to me if I want it up or not. After all, I'm paying for the bloody thing.

[–] [email protected] 61 points 2 months ago (3 children)

The vast majority of regular internet users never think of things from this perspective because they've never been in a position of running a public facing website. To most people, the Internet is just there to be taken for granted like the public street and park outside someone's house. All the stuff on it just exists there by itself. That's also why we have issues with free speech online, where people expect certain rights that don't exist, because these aren't publicly owned websites and people aren't getting that.

[–] [email protected] 31 points 2 months ago (1 children)

To most people, the Internet is just there to be taken for granted like the public street and park outside someone’s house.

Both of which require maintenance that most people don't think about...

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)

And both of which impact its users’ lives, thus why the users feel they should have a say in what’s done with the space, even if they aren’t the owners of the space

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Huh, the difference is that a website is not akin to a public park but privately owned park with or without entrance fee. The owner is nice enough to open the park and let you do whatever you want for free with the cleaning and maintenance is paid by the owner, but when the park is closed, would you still say the owner should still be forced to maintain it?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I don’t particularly agree with the concept of the privately owned park and feel that it has ruined the social lives of Americans, since they’re no longer allowed to “loiter” (exist) anywhere outside of work and home. And also, yes, I think you should have to maintain the property you’ve taken away from the surrounding community or else give it back. I don’t think the comparison to the Web necessarily holds up, but I do think that people’s contributions to a website remain theirs even if you pay a lawyer to write down that it’s not. The concept of complete forfeiture of any claim to your work because-I-said-so is very made up. Your hard work is not.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Hmmm, yeah it gets harder to associate it with physical reality when user generated content is introduced. Maybe an archival of said content is mandated but then again, who is going to serve the archive. In the case of youtube, it would be almost impossible

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

I was just talking about YouTube last night! It’s easy to forget the mind bending amount of data uploaded and stored every single day. It is impossible to draw a comparison to anything that has ever come before. And it will all have to go away at some point, as far as I’m concerned. It’s untenable to keep more than a tiny fraction of it. There is so much interesting stuff… and the site has existed for the blink of an eye. Nobody can consume a meaningful amount of the information stored on it, nobody could possibly categorize and manage a system of valuation and sortation. Barring a radical reorganization of economic system and values, any sort of proposed YouTube Archival Project never makes a dent. And files are only getting bigger… crazy to think that my kids will likely never get through the amount of photos and videos of my childhood that exist, yet I currently possess all of the photographic proof of my mom’s parents’ existence in the back of a small drawer.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 months ago

Maybe the internet should be treated more like public infrastructure. If everyone communicates primarily online, the lack of freedom of speech on online platforms is a problem. And the sudden disappearance of a service people depend on, too (not that I think this website is a good example).

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 months ago
[–] [email protected] 41 points 2 months ago (37 children)

That being said, if a third party, like the Internet Archive, wants to archive it they should have every right.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Maybe for sites from corporations or similar sources. But people should have always have the right to be forgotten. And in fact in some countries they do have this right.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 2 months ago

Want to be forgotten is about personally identifiable information. Other work, which is covered under copyright, which means if someone has legally obtained a copy of it, as long as they're not distributing it, is their right to do whatever the fuck they want with it. Even hold it until the copyright expires at which point they can publish it as much as they want.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago (1 children)

A "Library of Congress" for published web content maybe. Some sort of standard that allows / requires websites that publish content on oublic-facing sites to also share a permanent copy with an archive, without having the archive have to scrape it.

Sort of like how book publishers send a copy to the LoC.

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (35 replies)
[–] [email protected] 13 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (4 children)

Ehh, I halfway agree, but there is value in keeping historical stuff around. Heritage laws exist in a good number of countries so that all the cultural architecture doesn't get erased by developers looking to turn a quick buck or rich people who think that 500 year old castle could really use an infinity pool hot tub; there are strict requirements for a building to be heritage-listed but once they are, the owner is required by law to maintain it to historical standards.

I only halfway disagree because you're right, forcing people to pay for something has never sat right with me generally. As long as the laws don't bite people like you and me, e.g. there are relatively high requirements for something to be considered "culturally relevant" enough to preserve, I'd be okay with some kind of heritage system for preserving the internet.

load more comments (4 replies)
[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 months ago

We as a society gives your protections through copyright, why can we not let that protection come with some requirements?

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 months ago

Individuals should be allowed. Corporations shouldn't.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago

Yup that's why internet archive is a thing, a site should not be forced to host their content forever but the hivemind in lemmy has a hard on against any and all corporate entities and they'll justify any kind of over reach as long as it's against one

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

I mostly agree, but I do think that if the website was partly funded by subscriptions or the users paid via advertising/their data then there's a gap for saying it should remain available.

load more comments (3 replies)