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Verizon Launches Tech News Site That Bans Stories On US Spying
blottsie writes: The most-valuable, second-richest telecommunications company in the world is bankrolling a technology news site called SugarString.com. The publication, which is now hiring its first full-time editors and reporters, is meant to rival major tech websites like Wired and the Verge while bringing in a potentially giant mainstream audience to beat those competitors at their own game.
There's just one catch: In exchange for the major corporate backing, tech reporters at SugarString are expressly forbidden from writing about American spying or net neutrality around the world, two of the biggest issues in tech and politics today.
There's just one catch: In exchange for the major corporate backing, tech reporters at SugarString are expressly forbidden from writing about American spying or net neutrality around the world, two of the biggest issues in tech and politics today.
Talk about a straw man.
"Mainstream" tech sites are bad enough already.
And I care about one more crappy corporate-controlled portal site why? Other than the "will they set up a GeoCities page next"-esque shock-value that any company in 2014 still believes their customers give the least damn about their ISP's home page, of course.
If Verizon doesn't want news about the ways the intelligence community and Verizon conspire to rape us all, hey, their portal. And if I want actual news, hey, not their portal. It all balances out.
In exchange for the major corporate backing, tech reporters at SugarString are expressly forbidden from writing about American spying or net neutrality around the world, two of the biggest issues in tech and politics today.
You gotta admire the chutzpah. Even as they are saying to the FCC that they can be trusted with the authority to be the gatekeepers of the Internet, they put on a public display of their intent to inhibit public policy debate on the very issue of Net Neutrality itself.
The extraordinary lack of self-consciousness is difficult to fathom. It rises to the level of, "Let them eat cake."
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
The most-valuable, second-richest telecommunications company in the world is bankrolling a technology propaganda site called SugarString.com
FTFY
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
It's the perfect example of why those who distribute media/news should never have been allowed to be the same ones who create the media/news.
It sort of us. It's not very revenue-rich, but there's a lot of value to your typical business in being able to officially publish things that help shape discussion. I wouldn't be surprised if most newspapers moved to operating at a (smallish) loss, owned by people from outside industries by the end of the decade.
That is like making a crime website but not reporting on murders and robberies that the company committed.
FTFY
Until we all have extremely high-speed internet connections in our homes, the local HDD will not be obsolete. As that isn't happening anytime soon (in the US, at least), I don't think Seagate / WD have anything to worry about.
bork bork bork!
These are issues that Verizon cannot be neutral on, so it makes perfect ethical sense for them to recuse themselves from discussing such topics. Don't lambast them for it.
The real questions here are:
1) Who are the backers and why did they stipulate this requirement?
2) Why is Verizon starting a news & pop culture site in a time when such sites are prevalent and unprofitable?
SugarString.com is USELESS and should be ostracised as a propganda site, NOT a news site.
In fact, it should be legally barred from calling itself a "news" site.