The web has a problem: huge chunks of it keep going offline. The web isn’t static, parts of it sometimes just… vanish.

But it’s not all grim. The Internet Archive has a massive mission to identify and back up our online world into a vast digital library. In 2001, it launched the Wayback Machine, an interface that lets anyone call up snapshots of sites and look at how they used to be and what they used to say at a given moment in time. Mark Graham, director of the Wayback Machine, joins Decoder this week to explain both why and how the organization tries to keep the web from disappearing.

Links:

When Online Content Disappears | Pew Research
Game Informer is shutting down | The Verge
When Media Outlets Shutter, Why Are the Websites Wiped, Too? Slate
MTV News lives on in the Internet Archive | The Verge
The video game industry is mourning the loss of Game Informer | The Verge
Guest host Hank Green makes Nilay Patel explain why websites have a future | Decoder
How The Onion is saving itself from the digital media death spiral | Decoder
The Internet Archive is defending its digital library in court today | The Verge
The Internet Archive has lost its first fight to scan and lend ebooks | The Verge
The Internet Archive just lost its appeal over ebook lending | The Verge

Credits:

Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.

Our producers are Kate Cox and Nick Statt. Our editor is Callie Wright. Our supervising producer is Liam James.

The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.

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