Websites die too, and much of the early internet has been gradually, silently lost. Organizations like the Internet Archive can only do so much.

One major problem with trying to archive the internet is that it never sits still. Every minute – every second – more photos, blog posts, videos, news stories and comments are added to the pile. While digital storage has fallen drastically in price, archiving all this material still costs money.

The heads of social media companies could become personally liable for harmful content that gets published on their platforms under new plans set to be proposed by the British government. The plan, leaked to the Guardian, is also set to call for a new regulator, annual “transparency reports” from social media companies and co-operation with law enforcement.

Under plans expected to be published on Monday, the government will legislate for a new statutory duty of care, to be policed by an independent regulator and likely to be funded through a levy on media companies. The regulator – likely initially to be Ofcom, but in the longer term a new body – will have the power to impose substantial fines against companies that breach their duty of care and to hold individual executives personally liable.