Is It Ethical To Use The Wayback Machine?

[cuddyclothes]

I've set up a resource library for the UK and US from 1900-1940, give_satisfaction  written last year, I linked to a Live Journal entry. When making a new post about gay, lesbian and other sex in the library, I used the same link. A reader let me know the journal had been purged, but the entry was on the Wayback Machine.

So, is it ethical to use The Wayback Machine? Or should I delete it?

This might seem open and shut but I'd appreciate feedback.

ETA: It was  meant as a public entry. Thank you so much for the feedback!

Comments

[doranwen]

Wikipedia relies on the Wayback Machine all the time as articles it may reference aren't always available in the future due to companies re-doing their websites and stuff. A LJ entry is not quite the same thing as a commercial article but I'd treat it similarly. I have no issue using the Wayback Machine for anything, whether it be a journal entry, fanfic, or an article.

[moongoddex]

I'd personally err on the side of caution considering reasons why people may purge their journals.
Is there any way of tracking them down to present-day usernames? If they're contactable, it may be a shout to shoot them a message, explain, and ask if they want it linked or removed. If it's just a 'I left LiveJournal because LiveJournal,' they may be happy for an archived version to be linked! Or they may have a backup on DW or similar

[tozka]

Was it a personal entry or a scholarly one? If it's scholarly, it should be fine to link using Wayback. If it's a personal entry, that's a little iffier. I'd check to see if they have a DW account or other contact info, just in case.

[beradan]

In general, yes, I would say it's absolutely ethical to use Wayback, both for issues of sites vanishing for non-sensitive reasons and for issues of "someone went back and edited what they posted and now they're lying about having said it." In this particular case, I don't know that it would be strictly unethical to use Wayback, but it might be kinder not to if it's a personal post.

[alexseanchai]

agreed

[silverr]

I believe Wayback can only archive pages that were public to begin with?

My point being that I while think it is NOT okay to quote/reproduce content that was flocked, something that was public for a period of time seems fair game.

[doranwen]

Exactly! And you're correct: The Wayback Machine cannot archive private data, only public.

I had forgotten the exact words for my reasoning but that's it - anything that WAS public may be permanently made so and I don't think there's any ethical issues there. In this day and age if you want something to remain private you have to make it that way from the start.

[cathexys]

I'd have said, link it given that WayBack used to respect robot/spider blocks. However, as of last year they not only stopped respecting them but suddenly released all the pages they'd scraped and NOT shown previously. (I actually emailed them to take my web site down, which they did immediately, so it's not ill will as much as a change in policy, which is fine, but I'd have prefered they not suddenly release material that was posted while their previous policy was in place!)

All that being said: LJ used to allow users to choose whether they were "seen" by the internet at large and excluded you from searches etc if you wanted to. That would have included Wayback I assume. Given that they changed their policies, however,. I'm not sure the initial user ever agreed to be on Wayback and actively might have chosen to be excluded. So I'd probably go with not linking.

[thewriterinpink]

If it was never private, I can't see the harm in using the post even if it was once deleted. They put that on the internet for people to see for a reason, they knew people would be able to use it, didn't they? As long as the person doesn't come forward and ask you to not use their words (and you aren't using their past words to frame them in a purposely negative light), there isn't much you need to do morally. It's information on the internet. It makes sense to use it if it's available.