This is due to the decision of the New York Times to block a much-used web crawler known as “
“Ia_Archiver”.
This bot has been a significant contributor to the internet archive’s database. The decision affects users such as bloggers, journalists, and researchers who use the Wayback Machine to uncover ‘stealth edits’, and changes made to published articles without any indication or documentation.
However, after the New York Times blocked the “Ia_Archiver” bot, these users will have a harder time detecting such edits on the newspaper’s website. The decision by the Times could also affect other services such as news diffs that rely on similar technologies to track changes in news stories.
Overall, this move affects the readers’ ability to discern changes in the narrative and holds implications for how news outlets maintain their accountability in the future.
