Removing kiwi farms was a bad decision. The copyright and site owner did not request it and the content was not illegal. So the IA is picking content to delist based on their own feelings rather than simply archiving.
> Supporters of the Drop Kiwi Farms campaign celebrated the Internet Archive’s decision. “Internet heroes right here,” tweeted Yonah Gerber, who urged the Archive to remove the site. Kiwi Farms is known for collecting and publicizing personal details about targets it holds in contempt, many of whom are transgender women like Sorrenti. While the site ostensibly discourages direct harassment, Sorrenti has faced swatting attacks and persistent threats during her campaign, and other targets have had similarly ugly experiences. Kiwi Farms has been allegedly linked with three suicides, including an emulator developer who blamed the site for a relentless harassment operation soon before their death. [1]
Yeah, I have to say that I recognize nuance and am okay with archive.org nixing content like the above.
The problem with IA dropping the site was that no one could actually verify the claims about it while the site had been taken offline by the same campaign. It’s not a wonderful site but most of the claims the media make are easily proven false. For some reason much of the media confuses kiwi farms with 8chan and makes completely incorrect statements on it.
The emulator dev was never the subject of any kiwifarms discussion. Their letter blamed the state of mental health in America, Donald Trump, and kiwi farms. If that’s the bar for a site being pulled offline, then all social media should be.
The content was embarrassing and revealing for the people it concerned (hence efforts to remove it through any means necessary), but not libelous or defamatory - it consisted of archived material of their own words.
Libelous/defamatory content is not illegal in the same vein as pirated movies or CSAM, in that the Internet Archive would be criminally liable for hosting it. I wouldn’t imagine it’s illegal for IA to host a snapshot of a defamatory news article, for example.
> The content was clearly libelous and defamatory, which is pretty illegal.
That is incorrect. In the US, the _act_ of libel is illegal and the author of it can get into legal trouble. And a publisher might if they knowingly published false information, which is harder to prove. But the libelous _content_ itself is not illegal and is in fact protected by the First Amendment.
> Supporters of the Drop Kiwi Farms campaign celebrated the Internet Archive’s decision. “Internet heroes right here,” tweeted Yonah Gerber, who urged the Archive to remove the site. Kiwi Farms is known for collecting and publicizing personal details about targets it holds in contempt, many of whom are transgender women like Sorrenti. While the site ostensibly discourages direct harassment, Sorrenti has faced swatting attacks and persistent threats during her campaign, and other targets have had similarly ugly experiences. Kiwi Farms has been allegedly linked with three suicides, including an emulator developer who blamed the site for a relentless harassment operation soon before their death. [1]
Yeah, I have to say that I recognize nuance and am okay with archive.org nixing content like the above.
[1] https://www.theverge.com/2022/9/7/23341051/kiwi-farms-intern...