Petition demands New York Times, Atlantic and USA Today restore Wayback Machine access
A new initiative calls on major media outlets to cease blocking the Internet Archive, citing risks of censorship and the critical need for independent verification of reporting in an era of AI-driven content scraping.
A petition has been launched urging The New York Times, The Atlantic, and USA Today to stop blocking the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine, arguing that the restrictions are hindering the long-term preservation of journalistic work. The campaign contends that the primary justification for these blocks—hypothetical concerns regarding generative artificial intelligence—is a flawed excuse that ultimately serves to hide reporting from fact-checkers and future scrutiny.
The initiative highlights that 2026 marks the first World Press Freedom Day in three decades where the work of journalists at these major outlets is not being preserved by the independent, nonprofit Internet Archive. The petition asserts that the freedom of journalists extends beyond the act of writing to ensuring their work is readable and remembered for generations, a function the Wayback Machine has performed for decades without skipping paywalls or compromising integrity.
Since February of this year, The New York Times has instructed the Internet Archive to halt the preservation of its journalists’ work. Meanwhile, Wired recently reported that USA Today presents an irony by publishing reporting that relies on the Wayback Machine while simultaneously blocking the archive from preserving that same content. When over 100 journalists delivered a letter to The Atlantic celebrating the archive’s respectful preservation of journalism, the outlet’s CEO weighed in on the matter but did not commit to finding a solution.
The petition distinguishes the Internet Archive from other entities that may scrape content, arguing that AI companies can easily ignore rules and grab news without consent, whereas the archive operates with integrity and aims to operate for the long term. It claims that generative AI is the top reason why the Wayback Machine is more crucial than ever, as it provides a neutral, third-party record that protects against the growing pressures of censorship and authoritarianism.
Citing reports from Wired, Marketplace, TechRadar, The Verge, and Forbes, the campaign notes that journalists frequently face death threats and that many have died for their work in the past year. The petition calls on the leadership of major media outlets to publicly commit to working with the Internet Archive, arguing that the archive makes news outlets more resilient against pressure to remove stories that threaten powerful interests.
