Tough times for the Internet

Posted on 30/05/2024

Many pages have been removed or abandoned, so much so that a quarter of the active sites between 2013 and 2023 no longer exist or are no longer accessible: there is talk of "digital erosion"

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According to an analysis by the Pew Research Center, a quarter of active websites between 2013 and 2023 no longer exist or are no longer accessible. The disappearance of these pages is attributed to various factors, including the deliberate removal of content, website transfers that break links, and the abandonment of websites—a true phenomenon of digital erosion.

The research found that approximately 23% of news pages contain at least one broken link, while 21% of government website pages and 54% of Wikipedia pages have references to content that no longer exists. This indicates that web erosion spares not even the most frequented platforms used for information seeking.

The phenomenon is particularly evident in older content: about 38% of web pages existing in 2013 are no longer available today. Even more recently created pages are not immune; 8% of the pages existing in 2023 have already disappeared. When a page becomes inaccessible, users are greeted with the familiar error message “404 Not Found,” indicating that the content no longer exists on the host server.

A phenomenon impacting social media too

Digital decay is not limited to websites but also affects social media. About one-fifth of tweets disappear within a few months of posting. Specifically, over 40% of tweets in Turkish or Arabic are no longer visible on the site within three months of posting. Tweets from accounts with default profile settings have a higher likelihood of disappearing.

For this analysis, the Pew Research Center collected a sample of pages from the web repository Common Crawl for each year from 2013 to 2023. It then verified the availability of these pages and the integrity of the links. It also examined the frequency with which social media posts are deleted or removed.

It has been concluded that web erosion poses a serious problem for the preservation of online knowledge. The ongoing disappearance of web content could compromise our ability to access historical and current information, thereby reducing the richness of our collective digital archive.

Source: Pew Research Center

Gigantic “corpse flower” blooms at University of Colorado after 8 years: thousands flock to smell it

The CSU corpse flower blooms for the first time in eight years, attracting thousands of visitors curious about its unique scent.

@coloradostateuniversity and csuagsci/instagram

It took eight years for the corpse flower at Colorado State University to bloom, but the wait was definitely worth it.

Over 8,600 people visited the CSU campus over the Memorial Day weekend to see and smell Cosmo, a corpse flower that Tammy Brenner, the manager of plant growth facilities, brought from a conference in 2016. After days of anticipation, the flower finally began to bloom on Saturday night, releasing a foul odor that visitors compared to everything from a “rotten Cheeto pie” to decaying meat.

Researchers also got involved, doing everything from taking samples to collecting seeds, and even measuring the air quality post-bloom.

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A post shared by Colorado State University (@coloradostateuniversity)

A rare botanical wonder

The corpse flower is an extraordinary rarity. According to the latest census by the United States Botanic Garden, there are fewer than a thousand specimens in the wild. This plant can reach up to about 10 feet tall and takes around ten years to bloom, only to wither within a few days. Despite this, its pungent smell quickly attracts a large number of pollinating insects.

Numerous botanical gardens and universities, such as CSU, have begun cultivating corpse flowers to preserve their genetic heritage and better study how these enigmatic plants manage to thrive.

Cosmo’s origin story

Tammy Brenner received Cosmo during a plant exchange at the annual conference of the Association of Conservatory Educators and Researchers. Cosmo’s “parents,” Maudine and Woody, both come from Ohio State University and were “born” on May 24, 2013.

Cosmo has been in the CSU Plant Growth Facilities greenhouse since 2016, and this is its very first bloom. When a corpse flower blooms, it emits a pungent odor that has been likened to that of decaying meat. This smell is most intense in the first 12 hours after blooming, but can still be detected for another 24-48 hours.

Source: University of Colorado