Tuesday, April 28, 2026 at 1PM EDT / 10AM PDT; REGISTER HERE
Publishers vs. preservation: what happens when the web can’t be archived? A timely conversation on AI, access & our digital memory.
A virtual conversation on access, memory, and the future of the open web.
As publishers move to restrict access to their content in response to AI, a deeper question is coming into focus: what happens to the historical record of the web when preservation itself is treated as a threat?
Join tech writer Mike Masnick (Techdirt), Wayback Machine director Mark Graham (Internet Archive), and public interest tech and media lawyer Kendra Albert (Albert Sellars LLP) for a timely conversation on the growing tension between AI, publishers, and the future of web archiving.
Drawing on his recent Techdirt piece, “News Publishers Are Now Blocking The Internet Archive, And We May All Regret It,” Masnick will explore how efforts to limit AI scraping are also cutting off tools that journalists, researchers, and the public rely on to access the past. Graham will expand on his op-ed, “Preserving The Web Is Not The Problem. Losing It Is,” making the case that restricting preservation risks accelerating the disappearance of our shared digital memory. Albert will ground the discussion in the legal and policy landscape shaping these decisions, unpacking what’s driving them, and what’s at stake.
Together, they’ll examine what we stand to lose if the web becomes less archivable, and what it will take to ensure that knowledge remains accessible in an AI-driven world.
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