The National Library of Australia is archiving online conspiracy, anti-vaccine and freedom movement content as part of its collection about the COVID-19 pandemic.
State Library Victoria confirmed to Crikey that it was capturing the content as part of its contribution to the National Library: “The State Library Victoria aims to provide a complete and unbiased record of online publishing relating to the pandemic.”
Its collection includes subcollections of web page snapshots from government services, businesses, cultural institutions and sporting organisations.
The subcollection “news, media, Twitter and opinion and protest sites” contains 198 archived snapshots featuring captures of news websites (including Crikey), app store listings for the COVIDSafe app and forum discussions about COVID.
It also includes a range of misinformation and conspiracy theory content. Some of this includes:
- The website and Twitter account of Harrison Mclean, an organiser of the Melbourne freedom protests who wanted to use the rallies to introduce attendees to radical anti-Semitic conspiracy theories
- The website We Are The Voice, an anonymous campaign calling to unban the use of the disproved treatment ivermectin run that Crikey reported was run by an anti-vaccine couple were also behind campaigns for a vote of no confidence in Premier Dan Andrews and to stop the pandemic bill
- The website of Cafe Locked Out, an anti-lockdown, anti-vaccine Facebook online show that’s been part of protests against children’s vaccines and op-shops for vaccine requirements
- The website of Discernable, another anti-lockdown, vaccine-sceptical online show whose owner, Matt Wong, posted on Instagram about his content being included in the SLV as “strong confirmation of the historical significance of our work”
- The website and Facebook pages for a number of other anti-vaccine groups and protests including the People’s Revolution, sovereign citizen group The Australia Project and various Melbourne freedom protests.
Archivist and historian Dr Mike Jones said including conspiracy and misinformation materials could be important in representing a period of time like the pandemic.
“That means capturing the good things, the bad things, the problematic,” he said. “It means the untruths and lies as well as the things borne out by evidence.”
Jones said capturing periods still requires “integrity” and not just “bringing all that stuff together”. He gave the example of archiving the climate movement: capturing it could include climate denialist materials — but also material that rejects that, preferably material of the time.
“It’s about capturing the records, understanding context and the relationship of what was created at that time,” he said.
