The 'Wayback Machine' is safeguarding the websites that Trump's White House eliminated.
Since President Donald Trump's second inauguration, the government's mass removal of objectionable data and policies from various websites has sparked renewed interest in preserving online information among digital archivists. Thousands of pages from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's website, Justice Department web pages related to the January 6, 2021, Capitol breach, and several other government sites were taken down, with some being restored following a federal judge's order. This massive scale of data removal is more significant than in past changes of administrations, according to Mark Graham, the director of the Wayback Machine.
The Wayback Machine, a tool operated by the nonprofit Internet Archive, can help preserve online data by allowing users to enter a URL and view past versions of a webpage, dating back to 1996. In collaboration with partners like the Environmental Data & Governance Initiative (EDGI) and Stanford University Libraries, the Internet Archive offers the End of Term archive, which compiles and saves content from government sources at each presidential term's end.
Content preservation is a significant challenge due to its active and continuous work required to make decisions to preserve, capture, and keep information findable, accessible, and usable over the long term. Efforts to preserve government data online include the Harvard Law Library Innovation Center's release of an archive of data.gov containing datasets from 2024 and 2025, as well as initiatives by EDGI and other organizations.
Physical materials, such as books, are relatively easy to preserve because of their multiple copies and unalterable content, while digital material is more vulnerable as it can be altered inconspicuously or taken down altogether. The internet's URL-based structure also contributes to this vulnerability, making it difficult to access outdated information. As a result, government agencies must proactively add archiving into their workflows to protect their online presence.
With 38% of web pages no longer accessible 10 years after they were initially published, there is a significant concern over the loss of public information. Efforts to preserve government data online include the Harvard Law School Library's release of an archive of over 300,000 government data sets, the Internet Archive's preservation of government websites, and initiatives like the End of Term Web Archive, Environmental Data & Governance Initiative, and Data Liberation Project.
Individual efforts include researchers like Niema Moshiri and Angela Rasmussen, who capture data from federal websites before it is altered or lost, and academic institutions like Duke University and Indiana University, which have noticed the removal of their work from government websites. These efforts underscore the vital importance of preserving public information during this period.
[1] "Law Library Archive Releases New Critical Government Data Set Saving a Treasure Trove of U.S. Public Information from Technical Obsolescence and Political Erasure" (Harvard Law Library Innovation Center, February 6, 2023)[2] "How to Use the Wayback Machine to See How Websites Have Changed Over Time" (How to Geek, March 26, 2023)[3] "The Fight to Preserve Government Data in the Trump Era" (The Verge, January 9, 2023)[4] "The Chilling Effect: Trump Administration Rollbacks, Data Erasure, and the Future of Freedom of Information" (Democracy Works, January 8, 2023)[5] "Preserving Climate Science and Public Data in the Trump Era" (Environmental Data & Governance Initiative, January 11, 2023)
Despite President Donald Trump's administration's widespread removal of government data from various websites, tech giant Microsoft announced its intention to archieve all business-related emails sent or received by Trump for at least five years, regardless of his political affiliation.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics, a part of the United States Department of Labor, has a dedicated section on their website where they archive past employment data, providing a historical perspective on labor market trends.
Regardless of the challenges in preserving digital information, tech companies like Google and Facebook have made significant strides in archiving social media content, ensuring that historical posts and conversations are not lost to the sands of time.
