Internet Archive Chairman Brewster Kahle: The web is ‘not fun and games any more’

Brewster Kahle, the entepreneur-turned-chairman of the Internet Archive, has a George Orwell saying on his mind: “If we allow those who control the present to control the past, then they control the future.”

This thought, pulled from Orwell’s “Nineteen Eighty-Four,” guides today’s work at the nonprofit Archive, which turned 20 years old last fall. The average life of a web page is 100 days, Kahle said on the latest Recode Decode, hosted by Kara Swisher, and “most of the best of the web is already off the web.”

“What we try to do is, if people saw it before, they can see it again,” Kahle said. “If you can’t refer back to things, if you can’t quote what happened before, then you can’t compare and contrast. I have kids in college — that’s what thinking critically is.”

Speaking with Swisher before Donald Trump’s inauguration, Kahle expressed concern about the new presidential administration’s opposition to both journalism and net neutrality. He warned that the openness of the world wide web is “just embedded in a few laws” and could easily be torn down.

“It’s not fun and games any more,” Kahle said. “It’s not, ‘Oh, isn’t this a cool new widget?’ It’s how we understand our world, it’s how we interact with each other, and it’s all quite controllable.”

“We need to show why openness works better,” he added. “You wind up with companies that thrive better. With standards, you have more competition that builds more jobs. Openness is a win.”

You can listen to Recode Decode in the audio player above, or subscribe on iTunes, Google Play Music, TuneIn, Stitcher and SoundCloud.

If you like this show, you should also sample our other podcasts:

• Recode Media with Peter Kafka features no-nonsense conversations with the smartest and most interesting people in the media world, with new episodes every Thursday. Use these links to subscribe on iTunes, Google Play Music, TuneIn, Stitcher and SoundCloud.
• Too Embarrassed to Ask, hosted by Kara Swisher and The Verge's Lauren Goode, answers the tech questions sent in by our readers and listeners. You can hear new episodes every Friday on iTunes, Google Play Music, TuneIn, Stitcher and SoundCloud.
• And Recode Replay has all the audio from our live events, including the Code Conference, Code Media and the Code Commerce Series. Subscribe today on iTunes, Google Play Music, TuneIn and Stitcher.

If you like what we’re doing, please write a review on iTunes — and if you don’t, just tweet-strafe Kara.

This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

Will you support Vox’s explanatory journalism?

Most news outlets make their money through advertising or subscriptions. But when it comes to what we’re trying to do at Vox, there are a couple of big issues with relying on ads and subscriptions to keep the lights on:

First, advertising dollars go up and down with the economy. We often only know a few months out what our advertising revenue will be, which makes it hard to plan ahead.

Second, we’re not in the subscriptions business. Vox is here to help everyone understand the complex issues shaping the world — not just the people who can afford to pay for a subscription. We believe that’s an important part of building a more equal society. And we can’t do that if we have a paywall.

So even though advertising is still our biggest source of revenue, we also seek grants and reader support. (And no matter how our work is funded, we have strict guidelines on editorial independence.)

If you also believe that everyone deserves access to trusted high-quality information, will you make a gift to Vox today? Any amount helps.

One-Time Monthly Annual

$5/month

$10/month

$25/month

$50/month

Other

$

Yes, I'll give $5/month

Yes, I'll give $5/month

We accept credit card, Apple Pay, and Google Pay. You can also contribute via