The Internet Archive website, which takes images of layouts of popular websites and archives them for viewing, is rebutting claims by liberal MSNBC host Joy Reid, who claimed the service is showing pictures of her past blog posts that were manipulated in order to make her seem homophobic.
In a blog post published Tuesday, Chris Butler, office manager for the Archive, often referred to as the “Wayback Machine,” wrote, “When we reviewed the archives, we found nothing to indicate tampering or hacking of the Wayback Machine versions. At least some of the examples of allegedly fraudulent posts provided to us had been archived at different dates and by different entities.”
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At issue are comments Reid apparently made on a personal blog she used to run. The comments resurfaced last week and were noted on Twitter by the user Jamie Maz. They included a remark about former Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers having “lesbian hair” and Reid saying she didn’t like to see two men kissing.
Reid denied that the comments were hers, despite apparently showing up on her website via images available on the Internet Archive.
“I began working with a cybersecurity expert who first identified the unauthorized activity, and we notified federal law enforcement officials of the breach,” she told the website Mediaite.com on Monday. “The manipulated material seems to be part of an effort to taint my character with false information by distorting a blog that ended a decade ago.”
It was unclear from the statement whether Reid was suggesting that the allegedly manipulated content happened by a hacking of the Internet Archive website or her personal blog, which is no longer online in its original form.
In December of last year, similar comments about gays were found on Reid’s blog, which she apologized for and admitted to authoring.
The Washington Examiner requested comment from an MSNBC spokesperson.
