Empowers Digital Investigations and Research

[aminaas1576]

The Power of Preservation: How the Internet Archive
A part of a series: The Internet Archive as Research Library


Written by Caralee Adams

When gathering evidence for a court case or researching human rights violations, Lili Siri Spira often found that the material she needed was preserved by the Internet Archive.

Spira is the Social Media and Campaign Marketing Manager for TechEquity Collaborative, as well as the co-manager of RatedResilient.com, a platform that promotes psycho-social resilience for digital activists. She has interned at the Center for Justice & Accountability and was an open-source investigator at the Human Rights Center at UC phone number database Berkeley during college.

In Spira’s work, the Wayback Machine has played an integral role in providing stamped artifacts and metadata.

For example, when researching the Bolivian coup in 2019, she wanted to learn more about the sentiment of indigenous people toward political leadership. Spira used the Wayback Machine to examine how indigenous Bolivian websites had changed since 2009. She discovered after initial criticism, some websites seemed to have disappeared.

“The great thing about the Internet Archive is that it really protects the chain of custody,” Spira said. “It’s not only that you look back, but you can even find a website now and capture it in time with the metadata.