Over 340 local news outlets block Internet Archive's Wayback Machine over AI scraping concerns
By
jaredwiener
Baker's choice. Dense with flavour, light on filler.
Summary
Major newspaper chains including McClatchy, Advance Local, and Tribune Publishing have joined The New York Times, The Guardian, and USA Today in blocking the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine bots. This move stems from publishers' concerns that AI companies might scrape the Internet Archive's repositories to train large language models. While no publisher has confirmed that an AI company has already scraped their content from the Wayback Machine, the trend of blocking has accelerated significantly since Nieman Lab first reported on it in January 2026, with over 340 local news outlets now restricting access.
Key quotes
· 3 pulledNo news publisher has confirmed to Nieman Lab that an AI company has already scraped their content from the Wayback Machine.
In January, Nieman Lab broke the story that major news publishers — including The New York Times, The Guardian, and USA Today Co. — had started blocking the Internet Archive due to concerns that AI companies might scrape the nonprofit's repositories for training data.
McClatchy, Advance Local, Tribune Publishing and other major newspaper chains are restricting the nonprofit's archiving bots.
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