Richard Enos: Latest Facebook Strike Means CE Might No Longer Be Able To Pay Me To Write

Snippet.

In Brief

The Facts:

A new online ‘fact-checking’ agency has wrongfully labeled one of our articles as ‘false news,’ impacting Facebook’s distribution of our content and once again seriously reducing our advertising revenues.

Reflect On:

Is there a way for us as a community to come together and get beyond the reach of censorship and demonetization brought upon us by the social media establishment?

This message goes out to those readers who have enjoyed one or more of the almost 200 articles I have written for Collective Evolution since April 2018, and more broadly to those who believe in CE’s mission and mandate to provide conscious fact-based journalism: Now is the time for us to come together as a community.

It is a time when our ability to speak out against the fraud, corruption and manipulation of the social media giants and the powerful financial elite that support them is being severely impacted by these very forces. And unless those who believe in the value of our work and our mandate are willing to put a stake in the ground at this time and really support our efforts to overcome mainstream perception and its agenda to keep people distracted and asleep, our voices may be snuffed out.

The profound irony of the situation is not lost on me. Allow me to explain.

Facebook Reach

A basic explanation of how Facebook works and its impact on CE’s revenues is in order.

Up until a few years ago, the basic algorithm that Facebook used for delivering content into individuals’ daily news feeds was pretty simple: the more the individual actually clicks on the content provided by a source, the more consistently it would be delivered into their news feed. This algorithm was really in service of the people, give them more of what they are indicating that they want to see in their news feed.

Of course this was of great benefit to companies like CE, who were consistently creating content that people wanted to read. And so a few years ago it would not be unusual for a CE article to get over a million views, from some of the over five million people who had ‘liked’ the CE Facebook page that was launching the articles. This number of views in turn generated advertising revenue that more than supported CE’s operating expenses and initiatives that helped them really get their message out.

Fast forward to today, where the Facebook algorithm is increasingly being used as a tool to limit the distribution of content that mainstream forces do not want proliferating amongst an awakening population. New organizations are cropping up in cyberspace that purport to have the authority, knowledge, and discernment to label certain content as inaccurate, misleading, or flat-out ‘fake news’ that is somehow a threat to the public. What’s worse, these organizations and their findings actually have an impact on the reach that media companies like CE get for their articles.

Is this a violation of freedom of speech? Not exactly–it’s even trickier than that. It’s as if you are running a newspaper business, and they tell you that they will not prevent you from writing what you want. Your newspaper sells out daily at all the newsstands. Slowly, they start pressuring the newsstands not to put out all the newspapers you sent them. Then they start buying up all the newsstands, and the newsstands now tell you that they are not sure your content is suitable for their customers–even though they are selling out. Then the newsstands just stop buying and selling your newspapers, and you’re out of business–all because your content is not what the powerful new owners want the public to see.

Read the rest here: https://www.collective-evolution.com/2019/05/18/latest-facebook-strike-means-ce-might-no-longer-be-able-to-pay-me-to-write/