Internet Archive’s Wayforward Machine Paints a Dark Future for the Web

The brand is celebrating its 25th anniversary by looking into the future to predict what the web might look like in a quarter of a century. The association took the opportunity to denounce the regulation of the Internet by offering a gloomy vision of the future.

Put a URL in the and you’ll see a pop-up version of this page. The messages include a reading, “Classified content. The website you are trying to access contains information that the owner (s) have chosen to restrict to users who have not shared their personal information.” Another reads “This site contains information that is currently classified as thought crimes in your area.”

As things change, the Internet Archive suggests, free and open access to knowledge on the Web can become much more limited. A Wayforward includes a timeline of things that could go wrong in the years to come, starting with the Communications Decency Act, which is responsible for the things users post. A repeal could have huge ramifications for the web, although some, like, have proposed that the provision be reformed.

The timeline includes other crazy but not inconceivable suggestions, such as a law allowing companies to protect the facts, forcing Wikipedia to go to the Dark Web, and more countries introducing their own versions of. The Internet Archive partnered with several digital rights organizations for this project, including the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Fight for the Future, and the Wikimedia Foundation. The subsite includes resources on how to help protect the information available for free.

The Wayforward Machine is, of course, a satirical version of the, which has archived hundreds of billions of web pages over the past two and a half decades. It’s an important resource to help preserve the history of the Internet, including things like, so it’s probably worth paying attention to the Internet Archive’s vision for the future.