Annoyingly, Internet Archive doesn't respect robots.txt. I specifically excluded ia_archiver from my site which worked for a number of years until they decided to ignore it because robots.txt "do not necessarily serve our archival purposes." They do remove your site if you email them though.
Personally, I'm with the Internet Archive on this one. If they were to respect robots.txt, it wouldn't be long before a whole host of websites exclude the Internet Archive for dubious reasons such as lost advertising revenue, copyright concerns, exclusivity deals etc. I am curious to know if you've found the Internet Archive's activity to be exceptionally taxing on your servers, or whether you have another reason to wish to exclude them?
Mainly I just feel I should be in control of the sites I make. They're personal in nature that I don't mind sharing with the world, but if I want to change something or make them disappear completely it irks me that there's a website out there violating my express wishes.
How interesting! That's a completely different way of looking at the Web; I don't think I've thought about it like that before. I view the Web as a kind of library where you can add books as well as borrow them.
When I read something online, I sort of feel that it becomes a part of me as it informs me and shapes my perspectives. I like to think that I could re-read it if I ever forgot the details; as a result, I've downloaded quite a few websites. Common facts don't really apply here for me, as they'll be accessible as long as encyclopaedias exist, but personal anecdotes and niche catalogues are worth their metaphorical weight in gold.
Additionally, I download things that I one day hope to read, but think that the website might disappear before that time comes (due to the author not renewing a domain name etc.)
That conundrum was not resolved through speech, but through war. And, unfortunately, that war did not go far enough, as slaveowner politics quickly reasserted themselves.
Most of us would find a law that prohibits encouraging slaves from revolting or freeing themselves; to be horrid. Arguments that such laws don't really restrict freedom of speech because they're only encouraging an illegal act, would ring quite hollow. You might well be accused of sophistry if you made the argument seriously today; the act that's illegal to advocate is a fundamental right of all men, after all.
Conscripts are enslaved. What some may call a mutiny of conscripts others might call a slave rebellion. Let's just take that axiomatically for now. Obviously not all agree. But many accept that argument completely. Arguing it does not infringe free speech to call for people to free themselves, because it's only prohibiting the encouragement of a crime rings similarly hollow, from that perspective.
All true, but no one AFAIK was threatening abolitionists who used legal due process to actually pass the 13th amendment on free speech grounds. That activity is not the same as openly telling people to aid and abet breaking the current law, or conscientious objection.
> In the South abolitionism was illegal, and abolitionist publications, like The Liberator, could not be sent to Southern post offices. Amos Dresser, a white alumnus of Lane Theological Seminary, was publicly whipped in Nashville, Tennessee for possessing abolitionist publications.[57][58]
The southern states attempted to secede from the country, and fought a civil war that killed almost a million people to prevent the 13th amendment from passing.
The speech that advocates breaking the laws, but does not lead to immediate lawless action is already protected. I.e. if you say "hey you, I order you to take this gun and kill X!" then you're in trouble. But if you say something like "moral imperative declares that X should be killed" (and it's not a coded signal for an assassin but a genuine moralistic argument not intended to cause any specific action) then it's protected. That's why, for example, people marching through Oakland shouting "Death to America" were doing it in complete accordance with the law.
> What if I urge people, in a riveting call to action speech, to kill X celebrity or Y ethnic group?
I think the former is specific enough to be legally problematic, but I was actually under the impression that the second one is technically legal? (morally awful, but legally unprosecutable)
That's a grey area. The prosecution would need to prove that you intended for someone to commit the murder, that you advocated its imminent commission (or at least the imminent initiation of steps toward the crime), and that you believed your advocacy of such crime was likely to lead to someone carrying it out.
Such speech would only place you in legal jeopardy if it contains a direct and credible incitement to violence. If you simply said something like, "Let's kill all the Elbonians!” and nothing more then it would still be considered protected speech under current US Supreme Court precedents.
This has been exactly my experience as well. I've got a blog detailing how I built a small sailboat and the trips I've taken in it. The comments have all been either supportive or questions about some specific detail. I only get maybe 5 comments a year, but it's a good feeling to know my website has helped someone out.
https://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/internet-archive-rob...