FO° Community: A Timely Enterprise for 2025

Fair Observer

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JANUARY 15, 2025

Atul Singh

Founder, CEO & Editor-in-Chief

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New Year Reflections From Our Founder

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Dear FO° Friends,

Another year has passed. To say that 2024 was eventful would be an understatement. While the world focused on Ukraine and Palestine, Sudan went unnoticed. A vicious conflict displaced no fewer than 11 million out of Sudan’s 50 million people. We covered the humanitarian crisis in March, but one member of our community has rightly asked us to shed more light on this conflict. As a citizen-driven nonprofit media organization, we ask you to help. Do you know anyone who can shed light on what is going on not only in Sudan, but also in much of Africa?

Many people still think of us as a traditional media organization. They imagine that we send reporters to different parts of the world and cover stories. What we do is very different. We seek out people from around the world with knowledge in different disciplines and ask them to publish with us. We also receive numerous submissions every day. Our editors review every single submission, which we publish only when it meets our editorial guidelines.

A bottom-up approach, but with a filter

I have always said that I began Fair Observer to democratize and globalize news media. I am writing on a day when Helle Thorning-Schmidt, who sits on Meta’s oversight board, has been waxing lyrical about CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s decision to axe fact-checkers. He declared that his company, which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, would be “getting back to our roots around free expression.” Thorning-Schmidt, a former Danish prime minister, declared that this could hurt minorities and minority rights, especially the LGBTQ+ community, as well as gender and trans rights.

Many accuse Zuckerberg of pandering to US President-elect Donald Trump. They say that the Meta boss is competing with Elon Musk to curry favor with the incoming president. We know that tech bros are making a beeline to Mar-a-Lago to kiss the ring of the new big boss, who will “Make America Great Again.” As Trump himself said, “In this term, everybody wants to be my friend.” So, perhaps there is an element of truth to what Zuckerberg’s critics say.

Yet the truth is never entirely clear or simple. Like Trump, Fair Observer has also had trouble with the Internet giants. In the past, fact-checkers and moderators often acted imperiously. We were never banned, but we found it impossible to get an audience with the invariably posh people who claimed to speak for the weak, dispossessed and marginalized. Those running the softer side of social media companies were “useful idiots” for tech billionaires, but they drank their own Kool-Aid a bit too wantonly. They invariably had prosperous parents, went to top universities and possessed the privilege of outrage. They had the power to throw people into “Facebook jail” or shadowban users on Twitter. These fact-checkers often slipped into outright censorship.

Fundamentally, the problem with all of these social media platforms is simple: They are profit-maximizing companies. So, they have to make their platforms as addictive as possible and then sell targeted advertisements to their users. At the same time, they need regulators to stay off their backs. Fundamentally, tech bros want no legal liability for the content on their platforms. Hence, during Democrat rule, these canny bros hired smug champagne socialists, often attractive women, to lobby their friends not to bring in legislation to hurt their interests. These lackeys torpedoed any law that would add to social media platforms’ costs or increase their legal liabilities. They also opposed any competition policy that would break up their titanic paymasters. They did not want even a whiff of trust-busting à la President Theodore (Teddy) Roosevelt’s competition-enforcing policies. Now that Trump has ascended to the throne, these useful idiots are no longer necessary.

In this brave new world, the manly, martial arts-loving Zuckerberg has invited Dana White, the CEO of Ultimate Fighting Championship, to Meta’s board of directors. Earlier, Zuckerberg dined at the president-elect’s Mar-a-Lago club in Florida, and Meta donated $1 million to Trump’s inauguration fund. Out have gone champagne socialists, in have come the Make America Great Again crowd. Like many other tech bros, Zuckerberg has undergone a Damascene conversion to the new faith.

Unlike big social media platforms, we are not a profit-maximizing company. However, like them, we have to thread a thin needle. How do we marry a bottom-up approach with a filter?

On the one hand, we want to challenge the monopoly of self-anointed elites on pontificating about the world. On the other hand, as a responsible news media organization, we owe a duty to you — our reader — not to publish lies, disinformation or gibberish. Sometimes, what we publish causes members in our team much anguish. On other occasions, we are accused of censorship when we reject certain pieces because they are wrong on the facts, pure propaganda or plain nonsense.

We know there is no perfect solution. We have clear guidelines, rigorous editors and good intentions, but we still err at times. So, we need you. We will only achieve this delicate balance of combining diversity with quality if you give us constant feedback and constructive criticism. As our friend whom I mentioned in the very first paragraph observed, we must cover Sudan. So, tell us what we should cover and, even better, introduce us to people who can shed light on the topics.

Some personal memories that guide me

As the cliché goes, we are shaped by our experiences. I grew up obsessed with history. As I have mentioned over the years, my father gave me four children’s history books to kick off my education. They were from India, the UK, the US and the Soviet Union. These books made me realize the importance of looking at the world through many prisms.

Another memory, which I have not penned before, involves my mother’s brother, who was a powerful politician. Then, as now, India was corrupt. To be fair, many other countries are more corrupt. Anyway, when I was about 13, I remember my maternal uncle handing out brown paper envelopes of cash to journalists for favorable coverage. Note that he was also friends with many of the owners of marquee publications.

These Delhi-based journalists knew nothing about the rest of the country. Many were too hoity-toity to speak any Indian language. The vernacular was strictly for communicating with servants. Yet they sanctimoniously spoke about marginalized groups such as Dalits or Muslims without ever really interacting with them. Foreign journalists were often well-meaning but would draw their impressions of the country from this Delhi-based cabal that has been referred to as “Lutyens’ media.” Note that Edwin Lutyens designed New Delhi when the British moved the imperial capital here in 1911. Till then, the Brits had ruled from Calcutta, which has since been renamed Kolkata. Inaugurated in 1931, New Delhi is where the modern rulers of India live in almost feudal comfort even today.

Foreign journalists are too often seduced by these rulers, which is not that hard given that most of them do not speak any Indian language either. Furthermore, lavish parties with unlimited scotch help. This experience of narratives distorting realities has made me insist on breaking out of bubbles. They might be comfortable, but they are dangerous.

Jama Masjid, Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, India. Via Varun Shiv Kapur Flickr (CC BY 2.0)

If elites can be dangerous, so can mobs. I realized that firsthand when I was in a Muslim neighborhood as a teenager. I had cycled there to eat one of Lucknow’s famous shami kababs when someone asked me if I was Muslim. The Friday prayers had ended at a time when Hindu–Muslim tensions were running high. Some mullah had called for a jihad, and a few rough lads were looking for someone to beat up or knife. I have always been an agnostic. I think religions are morality tales for grown-ups. That day, I lied and claimed to be a boy of faith. I fibbed about being a good Muslim, and my Urdu was good enough to allow me to escape.

The moral of the story is that we cannot allow everyone to say just anything, either. That mullah in Lucknow preaching jihad might have caused my early demise. Clearly, we need some editorial standards to reject articles that preach jihad or crusades. Even libertarians tend to agree that freedom comes with responsibility. The debate as to where the balance lies is an unending one, and we need you to chime in from time to time. Now, more than ever, we need a community committed to dialogue where we engage with each other honestly, robustly and thoughtfully.

With my best wishes for 2025 and warmest regards,

Atul Singh
Founder, CEO & Editor-in-Chief

[Lee Thompson-Kolar edited this piece.]

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