Image for TechDirt: Verizon Launches Tech News Blog… That Bans Any Articles About Net Neutrality Or Government Surveillance
Avatar image of Meghan Sali

TechDirt: Verizon Launches Tech News Blog… That Bans Any Articles About Net Neutrality Or Government Surveillance

Verizon has launched a brand spankin' new "tech news" website designed to compete with the biggest and brightest - but their writers have been banned from posting articles about Net Neutrality and Internet surveillance.

Article by Mike Masnick of TechDirt

Patrick O'Neill, over at The Daily Dot, has a scoop about Verizon getting directly into our game: tech blogging. It's launched a brand new tech news website, called SugarString, which apparently is supposed to compete with other tech news sites. Now, I know that some are immediately skeptical just based on the fact that Verizon is launching a news site -- but I don't find that alone particularly troubling. In fact, I think many companies should be producing good, relevant content, because good content is good advertising.

Hell, a decade ago, I was very involved with a great news site that Nokia put together called TheFeature, which involved a really spectacular group of writers covering news and commentary about the coming mobile world (sadly, TheFeature was basically wiped off the internet, though the archives can still be found). But, at least there, we had free reign to write about anything we thought was interesting at all. There was no pressure or influence from Nokia at all -- at least none that I ever felt. And, honestly, I think more companies should be engaging with people with good content.

But, of course, this is Verizon, so its good intent is undermined by something silly. And, in this case, the something silly is that anyone writing for SugarString has to agree not to write about net neutrality or government surveillance, two of the biggest, most important tech topics these days. From our standpoint, I guess that takes away "competition" (though, amusingly, it does appear like at least one story on the site is a warmed over version of something that we wrote a week ago, but made more clickbaity with a "list") on two of the main stories we cover, but it really does raise questions about why anyone would ever trust the site in the first place, when, from the very outset, Verizon has made it clear that its editorial control will be focused on staying away from any stories that Verizon doesn't like.

Read more at TechDirt



Take action now! Sign up to be in the loop Donate to support our work