“The truth is paywalled, and the lies are free.” — Current Affairs editor, quoted by Brewster Kahle

The internet, we were promised, would remember everything. Rather than memory, however, it is now most distinguished by its digital forgetfulness. That’s the warning in Vanishing Culture, a new series of essays published by the San Francisco-based Internet Archive. In its concluding essay by Brewster Kahle — founder of the Internet Archive, member of the Internet Hall of Fame, and the closest thing the web has to an official librarian — he makes the case for preserving the online library system.

“Our evolving digital age can be our next Carnegie moment or it can be a Library of Alexandria moment. It is up to us.”

Today’s internet library system, Kahle argues, is worse than the analogue one he grew up with. It’s faster, he acknowledges, but shallower. The 1976 Copyright Act means that rather than buying digital books, libraries can only rent access in surveillance environments controlled by a handful of corporations. Sixty percent of news organisations now have paywalls. Academic publishing is controlled by three conglomerates. So an entire generation is growing up without access to the published works of the twentieth century.

“The truth is paywalled, and the lies are free,” as the editor of Current Affairs put it. That is today’s internet. No laughter. Only forgetting.

Five Takeaways

• Carnegie Moment or Alexandria Moment. The digital transition can make all human knowledge available to everyone for free — a Carnegie moment. Or it can burn it all down. Sixty percent of news organisations now have paywalls. Academic publishing is controlled by three conglomerates. The library system we have is worse, not better, than the one Kahle grew up with.

• The 1976 Copyright Act as Original Sin. Copyright used to be opt-in. The 1976 Act made it opt-out, with terms that keep being extended. Wikipedia had to be written from scratch. Libraries can no longer buy digital books. The bargain between publishers, libraries, authors, and the public that functioned for centuries has been dissolved.

• The Truth Is Paywalled and the Lies Are Free. An entire generation is growing up without access to the published works of the twentieth century. What is free on the internet serves the platforms: viral, emotional, frequently false. The deep, sourced, accurate record costs money to access. That inversion is not an accident. It is the business model.

• Turnkey Tyranny. Snowden’s phrase for what surveillance capitalism has built: all it needs is someone motivated to think tyrannically, and all the laws, policies, and technologies are already in place. Whoever controls distribution will eventually control everything upstream from it.

• AI Mass Larceny? The Real Loser Is People. Publishers versus AI companies is Coke versus Pepsi. The real dynamic: large corporations taking from people’s creative output and landing the value in very few hands. What Kahle wants is public AI — ClimateGPT, Wikipedia toolboxes, AI that serves the public good. The answer isn’t Coke or Pepsi. It’s water.

About the Guest

Brewster Kahle is the founder and Digital Librarian of the Internet Archive and a member of the Internet Hall of Fame. He lives in San Francisco.

References

Internet Archive: archive.org
Vanishing Culture, ed. Brewster Kahle et al. (Internet Archive, 2024) — free at archive.org

About Keen On America

Nobody asks more awkward questions than the Anglo-American writer and filmmaker Andrew Keen.

Website: https://keenon.tv/ Substack: https://keenon.substack.com/ YouTube: https://youtube.com/@KeenOnShow

Chapters:

00:00:30 The internet’s librarian: forgetting vs. surveillance
00:01:55 Carnegie moment or Alexandria moment?
00:07:52 Have you accomplished it? No.
00:08:27 The truth is paywalled and the lies are free
00:10:20 The 1976 Copyright Act
00:12:08 Four or five publishers worldwide
00:15:02 Big Tech vs Big Media: the same problem
00:24:44 Turnkey tyranny
00:30:20 Is AI mass larceny? Yes or no?
00:31:22 The real loser is going to be people
00:32:19 How to fight vanishing culture
00:34:41 Can we make a copy of Brewster Kahle?