The new administration has been accused of selectively deleting and altering information on government websites since taking office. Notable disappearances include pages about the Constitution, past Presidents, information about vaccines, hate crimes, low-income children, opioid addiction, and veterans. The removal of data sets related to the January 6th Capitol attack and mentions of words like “Black,” “women,” and “discrimination” has raised concerns about the erasure of the public record.
President Trump’s team is being accused of reconstructing a preferred vision of America through the removal of data, with archivists and historians warning of the erosion of democratic norms and lack of transparency. The restructuring efforts have led to concerns about accountability, access to information, and trust in facts.
Amidst this campaign of deletion, the Data Foundation has reported shifts in federal data gathering coinciding with similar changes in the private data sector. The movement to preserve endangered material is growing, with organizations like the Data Rescue Project and the Internet Archive working to back up government data sets.
The Internet Archive, a nonprofit library storing over 700,000 terabytes of archived web pages, has become essential in tracking changes in government websites. Concerns over government attempts to restrict access to information and change culture by limiting data availability have also been raised. The organization, despite facing challenges like copyright lawsuits and cyberattacks, continues to work diligently to preserve valuable information for the public.
Source
Note: The image is for illustrative purposes only and is not the original image of the presented article.
