Submitted 5 months ago by TheImpressiveX@lemmy.ml to technology@lemmy.world
https://www.pewresearch.org/data-labs/2024/05/17/when-online-content-disappears/
54% of Wikipedia pages contain at least one link in their “References” section that points to a page that no longer exists.
It would be interesting to know how many of these references don’t exist anymore and how many have just moved. Web has come a very long way since 2013 and I bet that websites hosting the references have undergone several iterations altering the URLs in some way.
That, in and of itself, is also a problem! First of all, because such pages often fail to return a HTTP 301 moved permanently response, and second (but perhaps even more importantly) the reason they move is because the site transitioned from using static, human-readable URLs to some kind of unstable CMS-managed non-descriptive gibberish that breaks caching and linking. It’s an intentional siloing and hoarding of content.
And how many are the site completely re-jigging their CMS with no forwarding set up.
The online era is going to be a thousand Library of Alexandria’s worth of lost information, records, journals, news, … everything. It will all just digital-rot into the memory hole.
And when trying to find a backup, no search engines can find it due to the AI garbage fucking up the SEO
I wonder how this compares the the number of businesses that existed in 2013 that no longer exist. I wonder for two reasons:
Something else that could explain a lot of it is webpages that were always intended to be ephemeral. Political campaign websites for instance.
Also… I once created hellblade.com. We sold gaming computers with cases that changed colour in the UK. Was a total disaster. Now it’s some big game franchise. Wish I’d kept the domain.
disgusting. it’s like early TV where people thought it was low-rent crap and not worth saving.
it always seems impractical to store this stuff but then it goes away and you realize how much you’re missing.
Perhaps something like IPFS would help mitigate this. Popular stuff would be pinned by someone.
I have said multiple times before that 2013 was the worst year ever. I’m still proud of that opinion, but maybe, just MAYBE, there was something good about that year after all, so it wasn’t all darkness and rainstorms.
It had MOAR websites to access.
Makes me wonder how many dead links and webpages there must be
noodlejetski@lemm.ee 5 months ago
remember kids, everything you post on the internet stays forever*
*unless it cannot be monetized anymore
RidcullyTheBrown@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Everything you post has potential to remain forever even if it’s not monetized directly. Cautioning people about it makes sense now and has always made sense.
flicker@lemmy.world 5 months ago
I know a lot of people still have terrible fanfiction they wrote as teens on the internet somewhere, so the warning is very appropriate.
Mereo@lemmy.ca 5 months ago
The WayBack Machine would like a word: web.archive.org
Phanatik@kbin.social 5 months ago
Even the Wayback Machine has limits to what is available.
BearOfaTime@lemm.ee 5 months ago
Oh, that stuff is out there somewhere… in a database
FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Or on a server hanging out in a landfill.
Makeitstop@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Don’t worry, it might still bubble up to the surface in the hallucinations of an AI.
Amir@lemmy.ml 5 months ago
You can’t train an AI on data that’s no longer in existence
lowleveldata@programming.dev 5 months ago
Really? Because I don’t think my dick pic can be monetized
empireOfLove2@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 months ago
Sure it can. People will pay to not see it.
ivanafterall@kbin.social 5 months ago
Maybe start a charity and raise money that way?