BuzzFeed CEO: Digital Media & Tech Giants Must Unite To Save The Internet

BuzzFeed CEO: Digital Media & Tech Giants Must Unite To Save The Internet

BuzzFeed CEO Jonah Peretti has slammed the internet as a “flaming dumpster” and admitted digital media has faced significant challenges in the last 12 months.

While he didn’t directly address the redundancies, his comments come several weeks after BuzzFeed was forced to lay off 15 per cent of its workforce as the company battles to achieve profitability.

“The internet is at a real crossroads right now. On one hand it can feel like a flaming dumpster. On the other hind it something we love that brings us joy and that makes us feel connected to other people in the world,” Peretti said, on stage at SXSW in Austin, Texas.

“In this particular moment we are at crossroads and we are really trying to figure out how to hit the right path to help the internet to fulfil its potential and benefit society and to bring people joy and bring people truth.”

He admitted this process has been “hard lately” with many digital media companies, such as BuzzFeed, having to reduce costs and staff numbers.

“A year ago I wrote a memo saying the media is in crisis. Unfortunately, it turned to be true and there has been a lot of troubles in the media industry,” he said.

These troubles aren’t just facing media as a business, but has spread to tech platforms, such as Facebook and Twitter, which is impacting the wider society, Peretti argued.

“What’s happened in the last year is the crisis that started in the media has spread to the tech platforms,” he said.

If you think back to a year ago, the tech platforms seemed as if they were all powerful; they weren’t going to have a crisis, they were printing money, there were growing, they were hiring… And their business is still strong, but they are having big problems with the content that lives on their platforms.”

From anti-vaxxers, to trolls to racists, Peretti said tech platforms have little control over the dangerous content being spread.

His solution? For tech platforms to pair with digital media and share some of their burgeoning revenue to enable publications to create more good content to counteract the bad or untruthful.

“We can’t just police bad content, we have to produce good content.”

Peretti remains optimistic about the internet as a whole and said he has seen positive progress in brands playing a bigger role in producing trusted content.

“It’s popular and trendy now to quit social media,” Peretti concluded. “But we can’t give up. We have to keep fighting to make a great internet.”




Please login with linkedin to comment

DDB Australia SXSW

Latest News

The Mars Agency Announces Latest Findings Of Retail Media Report Card
  • Advertising

The Mars Agency Announces Latest Findings Of Retail Media Report Card

The Mars Agency has developed a scorecard that assesses the capabilities of leading platforms across key criteria required to optimally plan, execute, and measure effective retail media programs. The scorecard aims To help brands efficiently evaluate their spending options across retail media networks in Australia (and New Zealand). With spending on retail media advertising in […]

TV Ratings (27/03/2024): Jungle Members At War Over Concealed Lipstick
  • TV Ratings

TV Ratings (27/03/2024): Jungle Members At War Over Concealed Lipstick

A heated argument between two jungle members did the numbers for Ten last night, with I’m A Celeb obtaining a total national reach of 1,282,000. Fans were delighted as Candice Warner and influencer Skye Wheatley got into it over a stick of lipstick, leading Warner to dub the Instagram star “selfish.” Wheatley, best known for […]