Common Dreams was founded at a time when the internet offered the promise of a whole new kind of media, free of the old corporate gatekeepers, open to voices that were historically shut out.
But today, a new breed of corporate gatekeepers and Big Tech monopolists are smothering that promise and making it harder than ever to survive.
Google, Facebook, and a tiny handful of other Big Tech giants control the overwhelming majority of traffic to news websites like Common Dreams. They use hidden algorithms to determine which news sources to prioritize in search results and news feeds–and increasingly, these algorithms have prioritized corporate news sites while choking off traffic to independent outlets like ours.
We’ve always had a secret weapon that has allowed us to continue even while Google and Facebook have become ever more aggressive about suppressing us. That secret weapon is you, the readers and grassroots donors who form the
backbone of Common Dreams.
But we must be honest: It’s gotten to the point where there’s now a very real question about whether Common Dreams can survive in this new, Big Tech-dominated internet.
This Spring Campaign drive is coming at a pivotal moment for Common Dreams as we work through what we all hope is the last
phase of the pandemic. It’s make-or-break time. We can’t fall short, because there is no Plan B.
