Is The End Of Independent News In Sight?

According to Matt Drudge it is. He is an American political commentator and the creator and editor of the Drudge Report, an online news aggregator.

 

His website, according to Alexa has a global website rank of 616 and ranks in the USA at 132 and according to Quantcast is receiving, we think around 3 million hits a day or 90 million a month.

 

In a startling unscheduled interview with Alex Jones on infowars.com Drudge warns “that the very foundation of the free Internet is under severe threat from copyright laws that could ban independent media outlets, revealing that he was told directly by a Supreme Court Justice, “It’s over for me.”

 

Drudge claimed that copyright laws will prevent websites such as Drudge Report from linking to news stories.

 

Drudge explained “I had a Supreme Court Justice tell me it’s over for me,”  They’ve got the votes now to enforce copyright law, you’re out of there. They’re going to make it so you can’t even use headlines.”

 

“To have a Supreme Court Justice say to me it’s over, they’ve got the votes, which means time is limited,” he added.

 

Drudge ominously claimed that a day was coming soon when simply operating any independent website could be completely outlawed.

 

He also said in the 45 minute interview – “That will end it for me – fine – I’ve had a hell of a run,” mentioning as well that web users were being forced into the cyber “ghettos” of Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

 

Drudge went on to warn that the social media giants like Twitter and Facebook were literally devouring up content and strangling the organic growth of independent Internet news platforms. News aggregators like Google News was also mentioned; “Google News – hello anybody? The idiots reading that crap think there is actually a human there – there is no human there – you are being programmed to being automated even up to your news….a same corporate glaze over everything,” said Drudge.

 

“I’m just warning this country that yes, don’t get into this false sense that you are an individual when you’re on Facebook, no you’re not, you’re a pawn in their scheme,” said Drudge.

 

It’s an interesting battleground that has been fought over in the last few years that Drudge feels is already lost.

 

One of America’s most influential conservative judges, Richard Posner, has proposed a ban on linking to online content without permission. The idea, he said in a blog post, is to prevent aggregators and bloggers from linking to newspaper websites without paying.

Read More: Is The End Of Independent News In Sight? – TruePublica