Internet Archive's Historic Campaign, "From Wayback to Way Forward: The Internet’s Library for 25 Years"

Recognized by the US House of Representatives, the campaign included my role as the Campaign Communications Specialist, involving historical and futuristic research, along with social media and community engagement. 

The purpose of this campaign was aimed at shaping public opinion and increasing awareness of the landmark legal dispute between Internet Archive and Hachette Book Group which includes major players in the publishing industry such a as Penguin Random House, HarperCollins, and Simon & Schuster.

In the initial phase of this project, we set out to create one of two interactive timelines. The first timeline focuses on the evolution of access to knowledge, tracing back to the 7th century BCE and leading up to the Internet Archive's contributions to information access. To achieve this, I immersed myself in exploring historical events, covering the extensive timeline from ancient times to the Internet Archive's 25-year history (spanning 1996 to 2021).

The second timeline we created was a dystopian projection 25 years into the future, up to the year 2046. We aimed to highlight the events leading to a future devoid of access to knowledge. I received guidance from subject matter experts, legal professionals, and website designers to compile images and assist in writing copy to highlight these scenarios.

As challenging as it was to develop those timelines, that was only the beginning of our efforts. Here's a glance of what we accomplished, followed by screenshots, images, and other exciting content:

• Creation of multiple interactive timelines and a standalone anniversary website
• Video time capsules made by our community members and global partners
• Social media experiment with fans tweeting as part of the resistance from the year 2046
• Case study showcasing the creation of the Way Forward Machine, a search engine visualizing favorite websites paywalled and restricted in the year 2046
• Campaign branding & art direction case study
• Live stage show broadcast across social media and more!

Here are screenshots of our historic project, acknowledged by the United States House of Representatives:

Here are some of the many influencers who amplified our campaign across the world:

We were honored to have prominent influencers such Vint Cerf, Vice President of Google; Cindy Cohn, Executive Director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation; Dawn Eden Goldstein, Author & Rock Music Historian; Peter Gabriel, Musician and Activist; Rick Wilson, Political Strategist and Commentator; The Library of Congress; The Wikimedia Foundation; Mitchell Baker, Chairwoman of the Mozilla Foundation and many others.

This campaign has been amplified by many 14 global partners, and generated media coverage from TIME and over 30 news outlets. 

The campaign was also recognized by the United States House of Representatives as an official part of our nation's history.