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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.
Adrian Cronauer: RIGHT! In... in Saigon today, according to official sources, nothing actually happened. One thing that didn't officially happen was a bomb didn't officially explode at 1430 hours, unofficially destroying Jimmy Wah's cafe.
Sgt. Major Dickerson: [to censor] Get him out of there!
Adrian Cronauer: Three men were unofficially wounded, and two men whose identities are not known at this time...
Sgt. Major Dickerson: [to censor as both are trying to get into the locked studio] Break the goddamn door down!
Adrian Cronauer: ...the fire department responded, which we believe to be unofficial at this present moment...
Sgt. Major Dickerson: [bursting into engineering room and barks to engineer] Turn it off! Now!
Adrian Cronauer: I just want to think that you should...
[the VU needles rest on their pins as the console goes dark... Cronauer removes his headphones and pushes mic boom aside]
Basically they are trying to diversify into everything in order to survive and (hopefully) increase their market cap. For example WD is best known for their line of hard disks for consumers (not sure how much, if any, of the server market they have, don't recall seeing a wd logo in a looong time). Cloud storage risks to make the concept of a local hard disk obsolete almost overnight (Microsoft already announced unlimited storage with One drive).
That is like making a crime website but not reporting on murders and robberies.
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's OK, everything is still shiny ... look, we have pretty buttons, and widgets, and apps ... why no, we've never heard of spying or net neutrality ... your government is here to serve you ... the corporations are your friends, we're here to help... we've always been at war with East Anglia ... War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery.
Fucking Pathetic.
They're basically starting the campaign of disinformation and leaving out the bits of reality which are inconvenient to them.
I sincerely hope people either boycott them, or make damned sure to either pollute their comment boards with the stuff they're hiding, or otherwise publicly shame them.
A "Tech News" site which isn't allowed to discuss some of the most important news about tech going on today is a horrible thing, and do not deserve any support from anybody.
Screw you Verizon. I hope every other tech news site spends time pointing out the crap you're doing and this blows up in your face.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
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.
There are lots of Government technical workers, who probably would like to read more tech news but have security clearance related fears. There is much FUD, possibly legitimate FUD don't know, don't have a clearance myself but have been interviewed many times when friends have sought clearances.
Some of them really are afraid clicking the wrong Slashdot story while taking a break at work could cost them. Frankly I think the bigger issue is the government though police are so frightened they even make an issue of such a thing but, it is what is.
So now I guess Verizon with profit from so new ad revenue.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
I found NSA intrusion long before it became headline news.
Noticing probing on the firewall I did traceroute look ups through multiple paths to define a pattern of problem servers.
When a common server was discovered I fired up the Robtex Swiss Army Knife Internet Tool.
Cross referencing the trees and information and records of servers I saw a former employer server was the problem "leaky insecure"
Interestingly it was being hosted on NSA servers. In other words the internet is hosted by dot mil and nsa servers.
A side note is just writing this post induced a buffer pointer over run, coincidence? : )
Not that I don't believe it, but the only link in the story that directly refers to the explicit ban is a picture of an email that one guy sent to another. It says that he likes working at sugarstring, but spying and net neutrality are verboten topics.
Anyone have a contract or other bit of more concrete evidence? Or is this story solely based upon the image of an email?
The best way to predict the future is to invent it.
If you want to know who is in charge, Find the person you're not allowed to talk about. Being a recipient of the controversial retroactive immunity for spying, as well as a contentious and vociferous opponent of net neutrality, Its fairly clear who cracks the whip. So if the arguably two largest concerns facing the internet and tech community are off-limits for SugarString, how is it they intend to beat the competition 'at their own game' if the competition offers in depth, comprehensive coverage and analysis?
Good people go to bed earlier.
You mean my ISP has one? I never thought to look figuring it'd be about as useful as the old AOL web site.
But back to the topic at hand: Way to go guys... shoot your credibility to kingdom come right out of the gate by placing limits on what will be covered. You might as well add a subtitle: "Cheery Verizon-approved News".
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
I scanned the comments to see if anyone picked up on this.
Verizon is a retail revenue generator, not a news organization.
Their portal is going to be an ad site.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
I can't believe no one is talking about how to hack the site to allow those sort of news articles.
I miss the bad old days.
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
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!
Reminds me of the gratuitous bong-rip philosophy you see on Ashton Kutcher's news site A+, which is bizarrely one of the most-viewed websites in the US.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
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?
Yeah man, because data in the cloud is not on hard disks, it's written to the sky by magic clouds. Thet's why it's called cloud storage. I also want everyone and their dog to have access to my data, because I hate the privacy I have left. And trust me, cloud services will be compromised. NSA has to be able to get in, so others wil leventually get in also. If not anyone else, then some insider. It's all taken care of by underpayed indian H1B.. umm.. slaves, so you just toss 50 bucks their way and the secret password somehow slips from their lips.
And what a stupid name, too. All I can say is that when I see the two words "sugar" and "string", one of the things I do NOT think about is tech news. Or any kind of news, for that matter.
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
These days, the first rule of hacktivism is you do not talk about hacktivism.
You should totally be a law abiding citizen and not attempt in anyway to punish or otherwise mess with this site. Advocating any form of illegal operation would be a completely bad idea ... *wink* *wink*.
As good citizens we should accept that the corporations know what's best for us, and it would be improper to become vigilantes.
No sir, not even a little. Unless you really have to.
In which case, wear a condom, ensure you're wearing clean underwear, and make sure that any packets trace back to China or Russia so they get the blame.
Oh, fuck it ... burn it to the ground, boys.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
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.
They have a long way to go to match Comcast.....
Reminds me of the gratuitous bong-rip philosophy you see on Ashton Kutcher's news site A+, which is bizarrely one of the most-viewed websites in the US.
Never heard of it before.