The Internet Archive to set up Canadian mirror to stay out of Trump's reach
Many people are concerned about just what Donald Trump might do when he becomes president in 2017, and some of the biggest concerns lie in the fields of technology and the internet. Worried about what the arrival of President Trump could mean, the Internet Archive is collecting donations to fund a Canadian mirror of the site.
The Internet Archive of Canada will lie outside of the jurisdiction of the US government and is being built based on the idea that "lots of copies keep stuff safe". Currently based in San Francisco, a blog post by the Internet Archive makes reference to fears about greater online restrictions that could be put in place by the US.
Calling for a one-off (and tax deductible) donations, the site -- which archives large numbers of websites for posterity -- says: "On November 9th in America, we woke up to a new administration promising radical change. It was a firm reminder that institutions like ours, built for the long-term, need to design for change. For us, it means keeping our cultural materials safe, private and perpetually accessible. It means preparing for a Web that may face greater restrictions".
Putting itself forward as an independent, non-profit library, and drawing parallels with the great Library of Alexandria, the Internet Archive says that the creation of the Internet Archive of Canada is important to protect privacy:
Reader privacy is very important to us, so we don’t accept ads that track your behavior. We don’t even collect your IP address. But we still need to pay for the increasing costs of servers, staff and rent.
You may not know this, but your support for the Internet Archive makes more than 3 million e-books available for free to millions of Open Library patrons around the world.
Your support has fueled the work of journalists who used our Political TV Ad Archive in their fact-checking of candidates’ claims.
It keeps the Wayback Machine going, saving 300 million Web pages each week, so no one will ever be able to change the past just because there is no digital record of it. The Web needs a memory, the ability to look back.
Read the full post (and leave a donation if you want) over on the Internet Archive blog.
Image credit: bluehand / Shutterstock