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Simon Willison
@simonwillison.net

The CIA just stopped publishing their World Factbook and took every page, including the archived copies of previous versions! This sucks. It was public domain, so I recovered the 2020 edition (the last one published as a zip file) and shared it to GitHub simonwillison.net/2026/Feb/5/t...

simonwillison.netSpotlighting The World Factbook as We Bid a Fond FarewellSomewhat devastating news today from the CIA: One of CIA’s oldest and most recognizable intelligence publications, The World Factbook, has sunset. There's not even a hint as to why they …

2.1K reposts5.9K likes

Kevin H Bell
@kevinhbell.bsky.social

There is a rule under FOIA that any record released by the agency in response to 3 or more requests has to be put on the agency's reading room, so this is actually true and I'm already drafting the request

Cramd 🇨🇦
@cramd.bsky.social

Ha, that will be labeled as national security issues. Who is going to enforce the law? While I hope I'm wrong, I just don't see the courts enforcing anything that is not what Trump says

Shirley Siluk
@ebishirl.bsky.social

Excellent, thanks! I've added that link (and credited you) as a resource in my own blog post about the World Factbook shuttering or, as you correctly describe it, "vandalism": shirleymsiluk.wordpress.com/2026/02/04/s....

shirleymsiluk.wordpress.comSpotlighting the World Factbook as We Bid a Fond FarewellFeb. 4, 2026 — “One of CIA’s oldest and most recognizable intelligence publications, The World Factbook, has sunset. The World Factbook served the Intelligence Community and the general publi…
MtcRace
@mtcrace.bsky.social

What could possibly be so much more important that they had to sacrifice this important tool? Let me guess…..using that money, from the CIA, to investigate voter fraud in blue states……

Axel
@clarityhacker.bsky.social

Internet Archive running the only reliable backup of federal datasets says a lot about government priorities on data preservation. Public data should default to immutable infrastructure.

Nicolás Alvarez
@nicolas17.xyz

The most recent and complete copy on the Wayback Machine is from 2025-02-05 when archiveteam systematically archived the entire cia .gov site. In theory you could download the .warc archives instead of crawling... but since it's the whole domain rather than just the factbook, it's 1.5TB >.>

agentschmoop.bsky.social
@agentschmoop.bsky.social

MF-er! I’m currently doing work for a public entity that will now have to change a bunch of their web assets to account for this, and they’ve already lost years’ of staff hours to other Trump admin.-related changes. That’s all tax payer funded time that’s not going toward the public good.

agentschmoop.bsky.social
@agentschmoop.bsky.social

And, it’s work that will all need to be undone if/when another administration comes in and reverse course on these idiotic, often all-about-optics-with-no-tangible-outcome decisions. I wish voters/tax payers could see the waste this shit causes.

🍂M.T.Botany
@mtbotany.bsky.social

Depending on the formatting it might be okay for older stuff since archive.org will probably have copies. It is not great going forward, but if they had kept publishing it I might have been nervous about reliably. Not my area for editing, though. I'm nervous about USDA plant information.

Nicolás Alvarez
@nicolas17.xyz

Yes, the most recent and complete copy on the Wayback Machine is from 2025-02-05 when archiveteam systematically archived the entire cia .gov site.

Stanley Q Woodvine
@sqwabb.bsky.social

An Internet tradition Downloaded my first CIA World Factbook in 1992, when it was still one long ASCII text file. Poured it into a custom Filemaker Pro database on my IIci. The memories! 🥺

Frank Bajak
@fbajak.bsky.social

bsky.app/profile/tim-...

Tim Weiner@tim-weiner.bsky.social

Wyden has been on the Senate intel committee for many years. The letter signifies that he's been briefed on a major CIA covert action -- as is legally required -- and the briefing was alarming. He wouldn't do this unless he believed a great deal is at stake. www.forever-wars.com/ron-wyden-on...

forever-wars.comRon Wyden Only Talks Like This When The Spies Do Something *Real* BadNo, I don't know what they did. But I have a lot of experience with the senator
Stephen Leahy
@skilleahy.bsky.social

Crap! I use this regularly just to figure out basic information about places I visit. I used its GDP/capita data to help determine the value of overseas job offers.

Planet Marge
@planetmarge.bsky.social

Yes, this information is invaluable for finding livable places to relocate to, as the various climates (political, economic, etc.) collapse. Welp, gonna have to go low tech now and try to see where the intelligentsia are heading.

Toby Bartels
@tobybartels.name

I haven't referred to it for years, because I get that kind of information from Wikipedia now; but as an old Wikipedia hand, I also know that the CIA Factbook is where Wikipedia got this kind of information in the first place! (I don't know how important it is for updating the information though.)

猫好きな人
@valoisdubins.bsky.social

I used it before wiki was even a thing! I moved away from it as other sources came online that were more transparent. Occasionally it would have numbers different to other sources with no way of understanding why. I also discovered some Cold War era estimates may have been ideologically slanted.

Toby Bartels
@tobybartels.name

I didn't know about it until the Wikipedia editors told me how useful it was! (Everyone seemed to think that it was scrupulously unbiased, despite its publisher, but of course this was in the 2000s, not during the Cold War.)

aeveion
@1v.lc

a lot of people didn’t use this amazing resource when they could because they were too silly to get past the fact it’s a CIA site. sad.

MisanthropeLovesBirds𓄿𓄿
@bird-nerdco.bsky.social

This makes me feel slightly better about keeping a storage unit that contains 85% books. Reference books with reliable information will probably become increasingly rare. The technofascists pushing AI down our throats want to control information available to people who aren’t them.

jo-smack.bsky.social
@jo-smack.bsky.social

That is SO bad! I used to assign undergrad research projects with CIA WF as a required source. In my context: Compare HIV/AIDS stats by country, investigate political/economic/social/cultural/educational/demographic/+ differences, report, and come up with better solutions. Glad you saved some!