Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by mrpg on Saturday January 20 2018, @10:41AM   Printer-friendly
from the unpaid-editor dept.

[...] HuffPost in the US today announced that it is sunsetting its contributors platform — also known as its unpaid blogger platform.

The news was broken by HuffPost itself (which, like TechCrunch, is part of Oath, owned by gigantic carrier Verizon), which directly tied the move to the changing tides (not Tide Pods, although I personally think there is a connection) in the world of news media and how technology is used to distribute it.

"Now, there are many places where people can share and exchange ideas," HuffPost editor in chief Lydia Polgreen writes in a post on the site.

"Perhaps a few too many: One of the biggest challenges we all face, in an era where everyone has a platform, is figuring out whom to listen to. Open platforms that once seemed radically democratizing now threaten, with the tsunami of false information we all face daily, to undermine democracy. When everyone has a megaphone, no one can be heard. Our hope is that by listening carefully through all the noise, we can find the voices that need to be heard and elevate them for all of you."

[...] I'll be interested to see if HuffPost's move signals more of these unpaid blogger platforms (ahem, Forbes) changing tack, and just as significantly whether these sites can find the magic formula to replace it in their revenue streams if and when they do.

Source: TechCrunch


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Saturday January 20 2018, @08:48PM (1 child)

    by Phoenix666 (552) on Saturday January 20 2018, @08:48PM (#625289) Journal

    That sounds right to me. On a discursive level I would say that having now been on the other side of the divide since the last election, most people are after the same things as the folks from the side I hail from, they just use different labels/terms that have been crafted by Pravdacorp to divide everyone. So there's the need to peer beneath all the fraught terms for the actual meaning of what people are saying.

    Then there's the infrastructure level to carry that discourse. We can do a lot with software alone, but that will only carry us so far as the corps and gov lock down the pipes as they realize how dangerous it is for them to lose control of the message. That bit, the hardware level, I keep grappling with. Sure, there are mesh networks but those can't substitute for the fat pipes at a level that people will naturally use.

    --
    Washington DC delenda est.
    Starting Score:    1  point
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   2  
  • (Score: 2) by frojack on Saturday January 20 2018, @10:20PM

    by frojack (1554) on Saturday January 20 2018, @10:20PM (#625353) Journal

    as the corps and gov lock down the pipes as they realize how dangerous it is

    I don't see government and corporations as the biggest risk factor here.

    Go back a day or two where someone posted a story about setting up a home web server [soylentnews.org] for remote family members. The fear and fud posted in response was comical in the extreme.

    No No, Billy put down that stick of dynamite, calm down, we can work it out. A home server is crazy talk. You just forgot your meds son.

    There's so much fear and loathing (to say nothing of ignorance) that everybody forgets that this is EXACTLY how the web was first envisioned.

    We have met the enemy, and he is us.

    --
    No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.