Wayback Machine

Twitter, circa 1995

The Wayback Machine is a digital archive of the World Wide Web founded by the Internet Archive, an American nonprofit organization based in San Francisco, California. Created in 1996 and launched to the public in 2001, it allows users to go "back in time" to "the good 'ol days" (sadly not THAT far) to see how websites looked in the past. The "machine" 's "founders", Brewster Kahle and Bruce Gilliat, developed the Wayback Machine to provide "universal access to all knowledge" (what a sin) by preserving archived copies of defunct web pages in their secret FBI cabinet.

Launched on May 10, 1996, but later just opened in 1997 after strapping dynamite and trying to set it off like a rocket DIDN'T work, the Wayback Machine had saved more than 38.2 billion web pages by the end of 2009. As of November 2024, the Wayback Machine has archived more than 916 billion web pages and well over 100 petabytes of data.

History

British branch of Wayback Machine

It all started back in 1993, when Kahle and Gilliat were trying to search a porn site and then realized that it had been outlawed. Absolutely devastated by this, they set on to try to archive their precious XXX sites (oh and maybe some others). They would take a screenshot of the link, then they would put an archive of all these screenshots on some website. Their first try was in the same year, but it failed on account of them being too unskilled and only just a bunch of web lurkers. After researching for 3 years they finally opened it on May 10, 1996. People finally had access to even the most oldest XXX sites, and everyone was happy. The end.

Uses

Uses have far outstretched the deviance that the Wayback Machine was once used for. It is usually used by nostalgia-ridden rose-tinted-glasses-wearing freaks to see Fox News back in 2000. or Pepsi in 2000. Or really anything before 9/11 and after Columbine. Wayback Machine won an award in 2008 by the Dementia Awareness Awards, also known as DAA, for helping patients with dementia about their epic forum fights from decades long gone. Journalists use the Wayback Machine to view dead websites (all of them really), dated news reports (all of them really), and changes to website contents. ...(all of them really). Its content has been used to hold politicians accountable and expose battlefield lies. None of this exposure really works though because politicians are supposed to lie, as it says in the employee pamphlet.

Censorship

Wayback Machine has been banned in China. It has been banned in Russia too. It really has just been banned in every single communist, authoritarian etc. place you can think of due to the sheer fact that it has different opinions. Wayback Machine has said that they don't really care that much and that they don't see a future where Russia is ever going to get those sweet sweet pornographic sites. So, up yours Putin! Whatever helps his Parkinson's disease.

WayForwardMachine

is some kind of sick, twisted idea that gives you a look into websites in the future, filled with ads and all such. I must say, it is a great idea. Don't touch Uncyclopedia though. I'll fight for it with my life! Or, with how much life I have left. I don't really know. It's really just some kind of protest thing to get you to see how HORRIBLE the internet would be and how YOU should fight for it, but in reality, we've already seen our apathy towards ads controlling the web, so in the future I really won't be surprised if something like this happens..

Wait, so, do you mean I could see Uncyclopedia in 2006?

Don't even think about it