On net, does mass digitization make history easier to erase?

Question

The viral charge on X: this is the Library of Alexandria, again — destroy the originals, and history can be rewritten electronically. The counter: Alexandria held sole copies; nearly every book in that warehouse has thousands of surviving siblings, and the scan adds one that can't burn.

Accepted Answer

Archivists have a motto: lots of copies keep stuff safe — and digitization usually adds copies. The honest counter, and it's a good one: a private dataset isn't a library. You can't walk in and check it, formats rot, and a file can be edited silently in a way ink can't. Both sides of this card are right about something. (46% of Americans answer "Easier to erase" — floor est.)