As we previously reported, the backlash from conservatives was swift after the Washington Post ran a hit piece Tuesday written by Taylor Lorenz in which the “technology reporter” outed and trashed the popular “Libs of TikTok” Twitter account, essentially branding them harmful to society for the apparent crime of simply reposting TikTok videos of radical leftist public school “educators” in their own words bragging about the indoctrination tactics they use on their young students.
To obtain personal information about the LoTT account, Lorenz in part engaged in doxxing, which included harassing family members at their homes. While Lorenz is obviously a staunch proponent of using such tactics against her targets – most of who are private citizens, when the shoe is on the other foot she erupts into tear fests during interviews to portray herself as a victim of “unfair” online harassment. For those who missed the one she did on MSNBC in early April, watch a short clip from it below:
NEW: Taylor Lorenz says she has "severe PTSD" from being a journalist and breaks down in MSNBC interview pic.twitter.com/G9FymoSdH8
— Jon Levine (@LevineJonathan) April 1, 2022
As we also noted, the Washington Post’s way of addressing the outrage that ensued after the article went live was to dig an even deeper hole by repeatedly lying on Twitter and to reporters about what they did and did not do in obtaining and publishing the information about LoTT.
But something else happened Tuesday related to Lorenz that has users of the popular social media platform scratching their heads. The archive of Lorenz’s Twitter feed was found to be inaccessible when one tried to access it through the Internet Archive “Wayback Machine.” CNS News editor Rob Shimshock was the first to report on it:
A digital library service apparently excluded from its database screenshots of the Twitter account of Washington Post columnist Taylor Lorenz, after Lorenz doxxed the identity and location of an individual who poked fun at leftists on Twitter.
When users attempted on Tuesday to view screenshots of Lorenz’s Twitter account as it appeared on past days and at past times using the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine, the website returned the message “Sorry. This URL has been excluded from the Wayback Machine.”
He snagged a screengrab of what he saw:
Taylor Lorenz's Twitter feed has been "excluded" from the Internet Archive Wayback Machine.
Internet Archive's stated mission is to "provide universal access to all knowledge." pic.twitter.com/j9CI9aqymt
— Rob Shimshock (@ShimshockAndAwe) April 20, 2022
As of this writing, the same thing happens when one searches their archive for Lorenz’s past tweets. It is, however, available on other web archive services.
Other Twitter users were quick to point out how Internet Archive bills itself as trying to preserve history despite the efforts of others to try and “change history” – while soliciting donations:
Not to mention they literally ask for money and state the reason as “they are trying to change history” pic.twitter.com/680kQFwBRt
— fedaykin reepicheep (@dumbreepicheep) April 20, 2022
Though Internet Archive hasn’t responded yet to inquiries about what or who prompted the feed to be inaccessible (and why), as well as how long it has been that way and if it will remain that way, my speculation is that it was Lorenz herself who likely made the request of the service to exclude her from its archive function. On their “Using the Wayback Machine” page, they provide details on how people can request exclusion (italicized emphasis by me):
Why isn’t the site I’m looking for in the archive?
Some sites may not be included because the automated crawlers were unaware of their existence at the time of the crawl. It’s also possible that some sites were not archived because they were password protected, blocked by robots.txt, or otherwise inaccessible to our automated systems. Site owners might have also requested that their sites be excluded from the Wayback Machine.
How can I exclude or remove my site’s pages from the Wayback Machine?
You can send an email request for us to review to [email protected] with the URL (web address) in the text of your message.
If my hunch is correct, then it would be yet another example of how Lorenz enjoys having it both ways. Case in point, her retweeting of a guy independent journalist Andy Ngo describes as a “violent extremist” and member of Antifa bragging about saving tweets LoTT has allegedly deleted:
Hypocrisy exposed, yet again. Pure Ls pic.twitter.com/M4YxwY0Qgm
— Kian 🇮🇪 (@KianjRyan) April 20, 2022
If it wasn’t Lorenz who requested it, Internet Archive needs to explain itself and the sooner the better, because their business isn’t hiding history. It’s making sure it can’t be erased.
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