Wikipedia editors have decided to remove all links from Archive.today, a web archiving service that they say has been linked more than 695,000 times to the entire online encyclopedia.
Archive.today — which operates under several other domain names, including archive.is and archive.ph — is perhaps most commonly used to access content inaccessible behind paywalls. That also makes it useful as a source for Wikipedia citations.
However, according to Wikipedia’s discussion page on the topic, “There is consensus on the immediate withdrawal of the archive.today, and, as soon as possible, add it to the spam blacklist. […] and immediately remove all links to it.” (Ars Technica first reported the decision.)
The talk page says Archive.today was previously blocked in 2013, but was removed from the blacklist in 2016.
Why are you reversing course again? Because, the talk page says, “Wikipedia should not direct its readers to a website that hijacks users’ computers for DDoS attacks.” Also, “evidence has been revealed that the operators of archive.today have changed the content of the archived pages, making them unreliable.”
The distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack in question was allegedly directed at blogger Jani Patokallio. Patokallio wrote that since January 11, users who have uploaded the CAPTCHA archive page have been unknowingly loading and running JavaScript that sends a search request to his Gyrovague blog, in an apparent attempt to get Patokallio’s attention and increase his hosting bill.
Back in 2023, Patokallio published a blog post examining Archive.today, whose ownership he described as “a mysterious mystery.” And while he can’t track down a specific owner, he concludes that the place is likely “a labor of love for one person, run by a Russian with great talent and European reach.”
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Recently, Patokallio said the webmaster at Archive.today asked him to take the position down for two or three months.
“I don’t care about the posts, but the problem is: journos from the mainstream media (Heise, Verge, etc.) choose just a few words from your blog, then build a very different narrative that had your post as the only credible source; then they quote and produce a negative result that will present to a large audience,” said the webmaster, according to emails shared by Patokallio.
Patokallio said that after refusing to take down the post, the webmaster responded with “a continuous series of threats.”
Wikipedia editors also pointed to web page summaries on Archive.today that appear to have been altered to include Patokallio’s name – hence the concern that it is “unreliable” as an archive.
Wikipedia guidelines now require editors to remove links to Archive.today and related sites, replacing them with links to the original source or to other archives such as the Wayback Machine.
In a blog linked to the Archive.today website, the site’s apparent owner wrote that Archive.today’s value to Wikipedia “wasn’t about paywalls” but rather “the ability to get copyright issues out.” They later wrote that things had gone very smoothly and said they would “reduce the ‘DDoS’.”
“Why didn’t you write about these events earlier, folks?” they said. “I don’t expect you to write something good, because who would read it, but there were a lot of dramas, right? Because there was no Jani to persuade you?”
