Pluralistic: 'Brand safety' killed Jezebel
Cory Doctorow,
Pluralistic,
Nov 11, 2023
I have referenced Jezebel in the past. Back in the day is was a smart website that didn't pull punches written from a women's point of view. As the headline suggests, it's current owner, G/O Media, is shutting it down. Cory Doctorow uses the occasion to warn progressives about embracing monopolies as agents for social change. Corporations, he writes, exist only for "taking money and power away from working people and giving it to rich people." The most effective way to do this is to publish content that is "brand safe". Websites that don't pull punches are not brand safe - but we need them. "The short-term wins progressives gain by legitimizing a corporate veto over what we see online are vastly overshadowed by the most important consequence of brand safety: the mass extinction of reality-based reporting.
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