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BuzzFeed, Inc. is an American
Internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, p ...
media, news and entertainment company with a focus on
digital media Digital media is any communication media that operate in conjunction with various encoded machine-readable data formats. Digital media can be created, viewed, distributed, modified, listened to, and preserved on a digital electronics device. ...
. Based in
New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
, BuzzFeed was founded in 2006 by
Jonah Peretti Jonah H. Peretti (born January 1, 1974) is an Internet entrepreneur, a co-founder and the CEO of BuzzFeed, co-founder of '' The Huffington Post'', and developer of reblogging under the project "Reblog". Education and early career Peretti was b ...
and John S. Johnson III to focus on tracking viral content.
Kenneth Lerer Kenneth Lerer is an American businessman and a media executive. He was the chairman and co-founder of '' The Huffington Post'', an American news website acquired by Aol in 2011. Lerer is also a managing director of Lerer Hippeau Ventures, and cha ...
, co-founder and
chairman The chairperson, also chairman, chairwoman or chair, is the presiding officer of an organized group such as a board, committee, or deliberative assembly. The person holding the office, who is typically elected or appointed by members of the group ...
of ''
The Huffington Post ''HuffPost'' (formerly ''The Huffington Post'' until 2017 and sometimes abbreviated ''HuffPo'') is an American progressive news website, with localized and international editions. The site offers news, satire, blogs, and original content, and ...
'', started as a co-founder and investor in BuzzFeed and is now the
executive chairman The chairperson, also chairman, chairwoman or chair, is the presiding officer of an organized group such as a board, committee, or deliberative assembly. The person holding the office, who is typically elected or appointed by members of the group ...
. Originally known for online quizzes, " listicles", and pop culture articles, the company has grown into a global media and technology company, providing coverage on a variety of topics including politics, DIY, animals, and business. In late 2011, BuzzFeed hired Ben Smith of ''
Politico ''Politico'' (stylized in all caps), known originally as ''The Politico'', is an American, German-owned political journalism newspaper company based in Arlington County, Virginia, that covers politics and policy in the United States and intern ...
'' as editor-in-chief, to expand the site into long-form journalism and reportage. After years of investment in investigative journalism, by 2021 '' BuzzFeed News'' had won the
National Magazine Award The National Magazine Awards, also known as the Ellie Awards, honor print and digital publications that consistently demonstrate superior execution of editorial objectives, innovative techniques, noteworthy enterprise and imaginative design. Or ...
, the
George Polk Award The George Polk Awards in Journalism are a series of American journalism awards presented annually by Long Island University in New York in the United States. A writer for Idea Lab, a group blog hosted on the website of PBS, described the awar ...
, and the
Pulitzer Prize The Pulitzer Prize () is an award for achievements in newspaper, magazine, online journalism, literature, and musical composition within the United States. It was established in 1917 by provisions in the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made ...
, and was nominated for the
Michael Kelly Award The Michael Kelly Award is a journalism award sponsored by the Atlantic Media Company Atlantic Media is an American print and online media company owned by David G. Bradley and based in the Watergate in Washington, D.C. It publishes ''The Atlan ...
. BuzzFeed generates revenue by native advertising, a strategy that helps with increasing the likelihood of viewers read through the content of advertisement. Despite BuzzFeed's entrance into serious journalism, a 2014
Pew Research Center The Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan American think tank (referring to itself as a "fact tank") based in Washington, D.C. It provides information on social issues, public opinion, and demographic trends shaping the United States and th ...
survey found that in the United States, BuzzFeed was viewed as an unreliable source by the majority of respondents, regardless of age or political affiliation. The company's audience has been described as " left-leaning". '' BuzzFeed News'' has since moved to its own domain rather than existing as a section of the main BuzzFeed website.


History

Prior to establishing BuzzFeed, Peretti was director of
research and development Research and development (R&D or R+D), known in Europe as research and technological development (RTD), is the set of innovative activities undertaken by corporations or governments in developing new services or products, and improving existi ...
and the OpenLab at Eyebeam, Johnson's New York City-based art and technology nonprofit, where he experimented with other viral media. In 2006, while working at the ''Huffington Post'', Peretti started BuzzFeed (originally called BuzzFeed Laboratories) as a side project, in partnership with his former supervisor John Johnson. In the beginning, BuzzFeed employed no writers or editors, just an "algorithm to cull stories from around the web that were showing stirrings of virality." The site initially launched an instant messaging client, BuzzBot, which sent users a link to popular content. The messages were sent based on algorithms which examined the links that were being quickly disseminated, scouring through the feeds of hundreds of blogs that were aggregating them. Later, the site began spotlighting the most popular links that BuzzBot found. Peretti hired curators to help describe the content that was popular around the web. In 2011, Peretti hired ''
Politico ''Politico'' (stylized in all caps), known originally as ''The Politico'', is an American, German-owned political journalism newspaper company based in Arlington County, Virginia, that covers politics and policy in the United States and intern ...
s Ben Smith, who earlier had achieved much attention as a political blogger, to assemble a news operation in addition to the many aggregated "listicles". In 2016, BuzzFeed formally separated its news and entertainment content into '' BuzzFeed News'' and the newly formed BuzzFeed Entertainment Group, which also includes BuzzFeed Motion Pictures. , BuzzFeed had correspondents from 12 countries, and foreign editions in Australia, Brazil, France, Germany, India, Japan, Mexico, Spain, and the United Kingdom. , BuzzFeed employed around 1,700 employees worldwide, although it announced plans in November of that year to lay off around 100 employees in the US, 45 in the UK, and 100 in France in June 2018. On January 23, 2019, BuzzFeed notified all employees via memo that there would be an upcoming 15% reduction in workforce affecting the international, web content, and news divisions of the company. The layoffs would affect approximately 200 employees. In 2020, BuzzFeed signed a deal with
Universal Television Universal Television LLC (abbreviated as UTV) is an American television production company that is a subsidiary of Universal Studio Group, a division of Comcast's NBCUniversal. It serves as the network television production arm of NBC; a prede ...
to produce content based on its stories. Three top '' BuzzFeed News'' editors in March 2022 announced that they would be resigning and the newsroom would face voluntary layoffs or job cuts. The cuts came after BuzzFeed investors encouraged Peretti to shut down all of '' BuzzFeed News'', but he refused, CNBC reported.


Funding

BuzzFeed raised $3.5 million in 2008 through Hearst Ventures and Softbank. In 2011 BuzzFeed ran more than 100 social media campaigns, resulting in triple revenue from 2010. In January 2012 BuzzFeed announced that it had earned $15.5 million in funding from New Enterprise Associates, Lerer Ventures, Hearst Interactive Media, Softbank, and RRE Capital to expand the site's content. Later, in October 2012, BuzzFeed ran sponsored content for the Obama administration leading to an increase in ad revenue. By January 2013 BuzzFeed announced that New Enterprise Associates had raised $19.3 million. The company was reported to be profitable in 2013. In 2014, it was reported that BuzzFeed had passed $100 million in revenue. In August 2014, BuzzFeed raised $50 million from the
venture capital Venture capital (often abbreviated as VC) is a form of private equity financing that is provided by venture capital firms or funds to startups, early-stage, and emerging companies that have been deemed to have high growth potential or which h ...
firm Andreessen Horowitz, more than doubling previous rounds of funding. The site was reportedly valued at around $850 million by Andreessen Horowitz. BuzzFeed generates its advertising revenue through native advertising that matches its editorial content, and does not rely on banner ads. BuzzFeed also uses its familiarity with social media to target conventional advertising through other channels, such as Facebook. In December 2014, growth equity firm General Atlantic acquired $50 million in secondary stock of the company. In August 2015,
NBCUniversal NBCUniversal Media, LLC is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate corporation owned by Comcast and headquartered at 30 Rockefeller Plaza in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, United States. NBCUniversal is primar ...
made a $200 million equity investment in BuzzFeed. Along with plans to hire more journalists to build a more prominent "investigative" unit, BuzzFeed planned on hiring journalists around the world and plans to open outposts in India, Germany, Mexico, and Japan. It planned on hiring staff for its UK bureau, its rapidly-expanding motion picture unit and its food-themed business, Tasty. NBCUniversal invested an additional $200 million in 2016 after the two companies had collaborated on many projects, namely the Rio Olympics. The companies planned to work together to market themselves to advertisers. Together, Comcast and its NBCUniversal subsidiary own about a third of BuzzFeed. BuzzFeed has said that it intends to stay independent. After laying off 100 employees in 2017, BuzzFeed laid off 200 of its employees in 2019 to help facilitate growth despite raising revenue by 15% from 2017 to 2018.
Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dust ...
began funding two BuzzFeed News shows in 2019 for
Watch A watch is a portable timepiece intended to be carried or worn by a person. It is designed to keep a consistent movement despite the motions caused by the person's activities. A wristwatch is designed to be worn around the wrist, attached ...
. Because of the
COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...
, on March 25, 2020, BuzzFeed announced in an internal memo that it would cut employee salaries on a sliding scale of 5% (lowest income bracket) up to 25% (highest income bracket). Peretti said he would not be taking a salary until the end of the pandemic. Many staffers expressed relief at this announcement as there were no layoffs. On May 13, 2020, the company shut down its divisions in the UK and Australia, furloughing 10 news staff in the UK as well as four in its Australian outpost.


Acquisitions

BuzzFeed's first acquisition was in 2012 when the company purchased Kingfish Labs, a startup founded by Rob Fishman, initially focused on optimizing Facebook ads. In October 2014, BuzzFeed announced its next acquisition, Torando Labs, which would become BuzzFeed's first data-engineering team. On November 19, 2020, BuzzFeed announced that they would acquire ''
HuffPost ''HuffPost'' (formerly ''The Huffington Post'' until 2017 and sometimes abbreviated ''HuffPo'') is an American progressive news website, with localized and international editions. The site offers news, satire, blogs, and original content, and ...
'' in a stock deal that made
Verizon Media Verizon Communications Inc., commonly known as Verizon, is an American multinational telecommunications conglomerate and a corporate component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. The company is headquartered at 1095 Avenue of the Americas in ...
minority shareholder in BuzzFeed. In June 2021, BuzzFeed announced its plans to go public via a
special-purpose acquisition company A special purpose acquisition company (SPAC; ), also known as a "blank check company", is a shell corporation listed on a stock exchange with the purpose of acquiring a private company, thus making it public without going through the traditional ...
(SPAC) and planned to acquire
Complex Networks Complex Networks is an American media and entertainment company for youth culture, based in New York City. It was founded as a bi-monthly magazine, ''Complex'', by fashion designer Marc (Ecko) Milecofsky. Complex Networks reports on popular ...
.


Content

BuzzFeed produces daily content, in which the work of staff reporters, contributors, syndicated cartoon artists, and its community are featured. Popular formats on the website include lists, videos, and quizzes. The style of such content inspired the parody website
ClickHole ClickHole is a satirical website (formerly owned by '' The Onion'') that parodies clickbait websites such as BuzzFeed and Upworthy. It was launched on June 12, 2014, in conjunction with ''The Onion''s decision to stop its print edition and shi ...
. While BuzzFeed initially was focused exclusively on such viral content, according to ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'', "it added more traditional content, building a track record for delivering breaking news and deeply reported articles" in the years up to 2014. In that year, BuzzFeed deleted over 4000 early posts, "apparently because, as time passed, they looked stupider and stupider", as observed by ''
The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...
''. BuzzFeed consistently ranked at the top of NewsWhip's "Facebook Publisher Rankings" from December 2013 to April 2014, until ''The Huffington Post'' entered the position.


News

BuzzFeed's news division began in December 2011 with the appointment of Ben Smith as editor-in-chief. In 2013, Pulitzer Prize winner
Mark Schoofs Mark Schoofs is an American Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and was the editor-in-chief of BuzzFeed News. He is also a visiting professor at the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism. Biography After graduating magna cum laude f ...
of ProPublica was hired as head of investigative reporting. By 2016, BuzzFeed had 20 investigative journalists.


Video

BuzzFeed Video, BuzzFeed Motion Picture's flagship
YouTube YouTube is a global online video sharing and social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google, and is the second mo ...
channel, produces original content. Its production studio and team are based in Los Angeles. Since hiring Ze Frank in 2012, BuzzFeed Video has produced several video series, including " The Try Guys". In August 2014, the company announced a new division, BuzzFeed Motion Pictures, which may produce feature-length films. As of September 1, 2021, BuzzFeed Video's YouTube channel had garnered more than 17.4 billion views and more than 20.3 million subscribers. BuzzFeed later announced that YouTube signed on for two feature-length series to be created by BuzzFeed Motion Pictures, entitled '' Broke'' and ''
Squad Wars ''Squad Wars'' is an American comedy streaming television series produced exclusively for YouTube Red, featuring The Try Guys ''The Try Guys'' is an American online entertainment group and media production company which produces content fo ...
''.


Podcasts

BuzzFeed started an in-house podcasting team in 2015, through which the podcasts '' Another Round'' and ''Internet Explorer'' were developed and launched. In September 2018, BuzzFeed shut down its podcast department and laid off the staff due to a lack of desired ad revenue. It cancelled most of its podcasts, including ''See Something, Say Something''. In late January 2019, they fired 200 staff across the company and cancelled the remaining podcast, ''Thirst Aid Kit''. ;Former podcasts *'' Another Round'' *''Internet Explorer'' *''The News'' *''See Something, Say Something'' *'' Thirst Aid Kit'' *''Reporting To You'' *''Rerun'' *''The Tell Show'' *''Women of the Hour''


Community

On July 17, 2012, humor website ''
McSweeney's Internet Tendency McSweeney's Publishing is an American non-profit publishing house founded by Dave Eggers in 1998 and headquartered in San Francisco. Initially publishing the literary journal'' Timothy McSweeney's Quarterly Concern'', the company has moved to n ...
'' published a satirical piece entitled "Suggested BuzzFeed Articles", prompting BuzzFeed to create many of the suggestions. BuzzFeed listed McSweeney's as a "Community Contributor". The post subsequently received more than 350,000 page views, prompted BuzzFeed to ask for user submissions, and received media attention. Subsequently, the website launched the "Community" section in May 2013 to enable users to submit content. Users initially are limited to publishing only one post per day, but may increase their submission capacity by raising their "Cat Power", described on the BuzzFeed website as "an official measure of your rank in BuzzFeed's Community." A user's Cat Power increases as they achieve greater prominence on the site. In January 2017, BuzzFeed's user-generated community content accumulated 100 million views. In February 2019, BuzzFeed News voted to unionise, following major layoffs. A dispute between BuzzFeed's upper executives and the union began when the executives failed to show up to a meeting.


Technology and social media

BuzzFeed receives the majority of its traffic by creating content that is shared on
social media Social media are interactive media technologies that facilitate the creation and sharing of information, ideas, interests, and other forms of expression through virtual communities and networks. While challenges to the definition of ''social me ...
websites. BuzzFeed works by judging their content on how viral it will become, operating in a "continuous feedback loop" where all of its articles and videos are used as input for its sophisticated data operation. The site continues to test and track their custom content with an in-house team of data scientists and an external-facing "social dashboard". Using an algorithm dubbed "Viral Rank" created by
Jonah Peretti Jonah H. Peretti (born January 1, 1974) is an Internet entrepreneur, a co-founder and the CEO of BuzzFeed, co-founder of '' The Huffington Post'', and developer of reblogging under the project "Reblog". Education and early career Peretti was b ...
and
Duncan Watts Duncan James Watts (born February 20, 1971) is a sociologist and a professor at the University of Pennsylvania. He was formerly a principal researcher at Microsoft Research in New York City, and is known for his work on small-world networks. ...
, the company uses this formula to let editors, users, and advertisers try many different ideas, which maximizes distribution. Staff writers are ranked by views on an internal leaderboard. In 2014, BuzzFeed received 75% of its views from links on social media outlets such as Pinterest,
Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...
, and
Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dust ...
.


''Tasty''

BuzzFeed's video series on
comfort food Comfort food is food that provides a nostalgic or sentimental value to someone, and may be characterized by its high caloric nature, high carbohydrate level, or simple preparation. The nostalgia may be specific to an individual, or it may a ...
, ''Tasty'', is made for
Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dust ...
, where it has 100 million followers as of December 2019. The channel has substantially more views than BuzzFeed's dedicated food site. The channel included five spinoff segments: "Tasty Junior"—which eventually spun off into its own page, "Tasty Happy Hour" (alcoholic beverages), "Tasty Fresh", "Tasty Vegetarian", and "Tasty Story"—which has celebrities making and discussing their own recipes. ''Tasty'' has also released a cookbook. The company also operates international versions of ''Tasty''. ''Tasty'' has also released its own kitchenware, which includes several products such as spatulas, cooking sheets, and mixing bowls. These products are sold in collaboration with Walmart.''Tasty'' also sells their "One Top", which is a smart induction cooktop, as well as "Tasty Kits", which are kits that contains cooking items for cooking at home. In light of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, "Tasty" streamed the Saturday Night Seder, an online Passover Seder that featured many celebrities and benefited the
CDC Foundation The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is the national public health agency of the United States. It is a United States federal agency, under the Department of Health and Human Services, and is headquartered in Atlanta, Georg ...
.


''Worth It''

Since 2016, Tasty also sponsors a show named ''Worth It'' starring Steven Lim, Andrew Ilnyckyj, and Adam Bianchi. In each episode, the trio visit three different food places with three drastically different price points in one food category. Steven Lim also stars in BuzzFeed Blue's "Worth It – Lifestyle" videos. The series is similar, in that three items or experiences are valued from different companies, each at their different price point, but focus on material items and experiences, such as plane seats, hotel rooms, and haircuts. Lim left BuzzFeed in 2019 to start his own production company Watcher.


''BuzzFeed Unsolved''

'' BuzzFeed Unsolved'' is the most successful web series on BuzzFeed's BuzzFeed Multiplayer. The show was created by
Ryan Bergara ''BuzzFeed Unsolved'' (also known as simply ''Unsolved'') was a documentary entertainment web series created by Ryan Bergara for BuzzFeed that ran from February 4, 2016, to November 19, 2021. It first appeared on the YouTube channel ''BuzzFeed ...
and features both him and Shane Madej (who replaced original co-host Brent Bennett). The show covers some of history's most famous unsolved mysteries, presenting them and the theories that surround them in a
comedic Comedy is a genre of fiction that consists of discourses or works intended to be humorous or amusing by inducing laughter, especially in theatre, film, stand-up comedy, television, radio, books, or any other entertainment medium. The term ...
manner. In some episodes, they visit the places involved with the mystery. Many of these episodes focus on the
supernatural Supernatural refers to phenomena or entities that are beyond the laws of nature. The term is derived from Medieval Latin , from Latin (above, beyond, or outside of) + (nature) Though the corollary term "nature", has had multiple meanings si ...
or paranormal and often include the pair
ghost hunting Ghost hunting is the process of investigating locations that are reported to be haunted by ghosts. Typically, a ghost-hunting team will attempt to collect evidence supporting the existence of paranormal activity. Ghost hunters use a variety o ...
during the investigations.


The Try Guys

The Try Guys are a quartet of friends (
Eugene Lee Yang Eugene Lee Yang (born January 18, 1986) is an American filmmaker, actor, producer, author, director, activist and internet celebrity, best known for being a member of the YouTube group The Try Guys (2014–present) and his work with BuzzFeed (20 ...
, Ned Fulmer, Keith Habersberger, and Zach Kornfeld) who put themselves in different, and at times, compromising situations and record the results. In June 2018, the four left BuzzFeed and created their own independent channel, also titled " The Try Guys".''


''Night In / Night Out''

Night In/Night Out was a series run by Ned and Ariel Fulmer. This show features the couple on two different dates, one at home featuring a homemade meal (using a BuzzFeed Tasty Recipe) and one at a restaurant in the Los Angeles area. Each episode focuses on one particular meal, such as baked salmon or hamburgers. At the end of each episode, Ned and Ariel would decide whether they preferred the home-cooked meal (and the accompanying ambiance and price tag) or the meal at the restaurant. However, the couple left BuzzFeed with the Try Guys in 2018, and the series was subsequently canceled.


Short-form Animation

Around 2017 Buzzfeed launched Buzzfeed animation labs with a focus on short-from animation content that is posted on platforms such as Instagram and TikTok. The studio has launched 30 projects during its existence, 4 of which have since been focused on due to finding success (Weird Helga, the Good Advice Cupcake, the Land of Boggs, and Chikn Nuggit), which as of 2021 had a combined total of over 17 million followers.


Notable stories


"The dress"

In February 2015, a post resulting in a debate over the color of an item of clothing from BuzzFeed's Tumblr editor Cates Holderness garnered more than 28 million views in one day, setting a record for most concurrent visitors to a BuzzFeed post. Holderness had shown the picture to other members of the site's
social media Social media are interactive media technologies that facilitate the creation and sharing of information, ideas, interests, and other forms of expression through virtual communities and networks. While challenges to the definition of ''social me ...
team, who immediately began arguing about the dress colors among themselves. After creating a simple poll for users of the site, she left work and took the subway back to her
Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...
home. When she got off the train and checked her telephone, it was overwhelmed by the messages on various sites. "I couldn't open
Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...
because it kept crashing. I thought somebody had died, maybe. I didn't know what was going on." Later in the evening the page set a new record at BuzzFeed for concurrent visitors, which reached 673,000 at its peak.


Watermelon stunt

On April 8, 2016, two BuzzFeed interns created a live stream on
Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dust ...
, during which rubber bands were wrapped one by one around a watermelon until the pressure caused it to explode. ''The Daily Dot'' compared it to something from '' America's Funniest Home Videos'' or by the comedian Gallagher, and "just as stupid-funny, but with incredible immediacy and zero production costs". The video is seen as part of Facebook's strategy to shift to live video, Facebook Live, to counter the rise of
Snapchat Snapchat is an American multimedia instant messaging app and service developed by Snap Inc., originally Snapchat Inc. One of the principal features of Snapchat is that pictures and messages are usually only available for a short time before the ...
and
Periscope A periscope is an instrument for observation over, around or through an object, obstacle or condition that prevents direct line-of-sight observation from an observer's current position. In its simplest form, it consists of an outer case with ...
among a younger audience.Hathaway, Jay (April 8, 2016)
Welp, the future of Facebook is exploding watermelons
''The Daily Dot''


Criticism


Plagiarism

BuzzFeed has been accused of plagiarizing original content from competitors throughout the online and offline press. In June 2012,
Gawker ''Gawker'' is an American blog founded by Nick Denton and Elizabeth Spiers and based in New York City focusing on celebrities and the media industry. According to SimilarWeb, the site had over 23 million visits per month as of 2015. Founded ...
's Adrian Chen observed that one of BuzzFeed's most popular writers— Matt Stopera—frequently had copied and pasted "chunks of text into lists without attribution." In March 2013, ''
The Atlantic Wire ''The Atlantic'' is an American magazine and multi-platform publisher. It features articles in the fields of politics, foreign affairs, business and the economy, culture and the arts, technology, and science. It was founded in 1857 in Boston, ...
'' also reported several "listicles" had apparently been copied from
Reddit Reddit (; stylized in all lowercase as reddit) is an American social news aggregation, content rating, and discussion website. Registered users (commonly referred to as "Redditors") submit content to the site such as links, text posts, imag ...
and other websites. In July 2014, BuzzFeed writer Benny Johnson was accused of multiple instances of plagiarism. Two anonymous Twitter users chronicled Johnson attributing work that was not his own, but "directly lift dfrom other reporters,
Wikipedia Wikipedia is a multilingual free online encyclopedia written and maintained by a community of volunteers, known as Wikipedians, through open collaboration and using a wiki-based editing system. Wikipedia is the largest and most-read refer ...
, and
Yahoo! Answers Yahoo! Answers was a community-driven question-and-answer (Q&A) website or knowledge market owned by Yahoo! where users would ask questions and answer those submitted by others, and upvote them to increase their visibility. Questions were org ...
", all without credit. BuzzFeed editor Ben Smith initially defended Johnson, calling him a "deeply original writer". Days later, Smith acknowledged that Johnson had plagiarized the work of others 40 times and announced that Johnson had been fired, apologizing to BuzzFeed readers. "Plagiarism, much less copying unchecked facts from Wikipedia or other sources, is an act of disrespect to the reader", Smith said. "We are deeply embarrassed and sorry to have misled you." In total, 41 instances of plagiarism were found and corrected. In 2016, claims surfaced of the YouTube channel BuzzFeedVideo stealing ideas and content from other creators. BuzzFeed has been the subject of multiple copyright infringement lawsuits, for both using content it had no rights to and encouraging its proliferation without attributing its sources: one for an individual photographer's photograph, and another for nine celebrity photographs from a single photography company. In June 2020, BuzzFeed News senior reporter Ryan Broderick was fired after it was revealed he had "plagiarized or misattributed information in at least 11 of his articles."


Reputation as a news site

In October 2014, a
Pew Research Center The Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan American think tank (referring to itself as a "fact tank") based in Washington, D.C. It provides information on social issues, public opinion, and demographic trends shaping the United States and th ...
survey found that in the United States, BuzzFeed was viewed as an unreliable source by the majority of people, regardless of political affiliation. ''
Adweek ''Adweek'' is a weekly American advertising trade publication that was first published in 1979. ''Adweek'' covers creativity, client–agency relationships, global advertising, accounts in review, and new campaigns. During this time, it has cover ...
'' noted that most respondents had not heard of BuzzFeed, and many users do not consider BuzzFeed a news site. In a subsequent Pew report based on 2014 surveys, BuzzFeed was among the least trusted sources by
millennials Millennials, also known as Generation Y or Gen Y, are the Western demographic cohort following Generation X and preceding Generation Z. Researchers and popular media use the early 1980s as starting birth years and the mid-1990s to early 20 ...
. A 2016 study by the ''
Columbia Journalism Review The ''Columbia Journalism Review'' (''CJR'') is a biannual magazine for professional journalists that has been published by the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism since 1961. Its contents include news and media industry trends, ana ...
'' found readers less likely to trust a story (originally published in '' Mother Jones'') that appeared to originate on BuzzFeed than the same article on ''
The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...
'' website. In a 2017 survey among US readers, BuzzFeed was voted the second least trustworthy source among American readers, with Occupy Democrats being lower-ranked. In January 2017, BuzzFeed again faced heavy criticism from several mainstream media outlets, along with then-President elect
Donald Trump Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021. Trump graduated from the Wharton School of the University of P ...
, for publishing 35 pages of unverified memos in full, known as the Steele dossier. In a highly publicized press conference following the publication of the memos, Trump referred to BuzzFeed as a "failing pile of garbage." Among the unverified claims in the memos was one that stated Trump's attorney Michael Cohen had met in August 2016 with Russian officials in
Prague Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 million people. The city has a temperate ...
,
Czech Republic The Czech Republic, or simply Czechia, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Historically known as Bohemia, it is bordered by Austria to the south, Germany to the west, Poland to the northeast, and Slovakia to the southeast. The ...
, a claim that Cohen has vehemently denied. On January 18, 2019,
Robert Mueller Robert Swan Mueller III (; born August 7, 1944) is an American lawyer and government official who served as the sixth director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) from 2001 to 2013. A graduate of Princeton University and New York ...
's office disputed a BuzzFeed report stating that Trump instructed Michael Cohen to lie to Congress. A spokesman for Mueller's office characterized the BuzzFeed report as "not accurate".


Unpaid contributors

Matthew Perpetua Fluxblog is an MP3 blog created and updated by Matthew Perpetua, music editor of BuzzFeed and contributing writer to ''Pitchfork'', ''Slate'', ''Vulture'', ''Rolling Stone'' and MTV. History The blog began in 2002 and began to host MP3s at the e ...
, BuzzFeed's director of quizzes, published a blog post in January 2019 after being laid off, revealing that many of the site's most popular quizzes were created by unpaid contributors. Perpetua identified one college student in
Michigan Michigan () is a state in the Great Lakes region of the upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the 10th-largest state by population, the 11th-largest by area, and t ...
in particular was "the second-highest traffic driver worldwide." The student, Rachel McMahon, said that until she saw Perpetua's blog post, she never knew that her quizzes were so significant for BuzzFeed's traffic. The quizzes made an estimated $3.8 million for the media company. According to the ''
Detroit Free Press The ''Detroit Free Press'' is the largest daily newspaper in Detroit, Michigan, US. The Sunday edition is titled the ''Sunday Free Press''. It is sometimes referred to as the Freep (reflected in the paper's web address, www.freep.com). It primar ...
'', she had never asked BuzzFeed about getting paid and the only material goods she received from them were four $30
Amazon Amazon most often refers to: * Amazons, a tribe of female warriors in Greek mythology * Amazon rainforest, a rainforest covering most of the Amazon basin * Amazon River, in South America * Amazon (company), an American multinational technolog ...
gift certificates, a BuzzFeed sweatshirt and T-shirt and several water bottles.


Advertiser influence on editorial

In April 2015, BuzzFeed drew scrutiny after
Gawker ''Gawker'' is an American blog founded by Nick Denton and Elizabeth Spiers and based in New York City focusing on celebrities and the media industry. According to SimilarWeb, the site had over 23 million visits per month as of 2015. Founded ...
observed the publication had deleted two posts that criticized advertisers. One of the posts criticized
Dove soap Dove is a brand owned by the multinational consumer goods company Unilever. Dove products are manufactured in countries around the world. The products are sold in more than 150 countries and are offered for both women, men, and babies. Dove's ...
(manufactured by
Unilever Unilever plc is a British multinational consumer goods company with headquarters in London, England. Unilever products include food, condiments, bottled water, baby food, soft drink, ice cream, instant coffee, cleaning agents, energy dri ...
), while another criticized Hasbro. Both companies advertise with BuzzFeed. Ben Smith apologized in a memo to staff for his actions: "I blew it. Twice in the past couple of months, I've asked editors—over their better judgment and without any respect to our standards or process—to delete recently published posts from the site. Both involved the same thing: my overreaction to questions we've been wrestling with about the place of personal opinion pieces on our site. I reacted impulsively when I saw the posts and I was wrong to do that. We've reinstated both with a brief note". Days later, Arabelle Sicardi, one of the authors of the deleted posts, resigned. An internal review by the company found three additional posts deleted for being critical of products or advertisements (by
Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washi ...
,
Pepsi Pepsi is a carbonated soft drink manufactured by PepsiCo. Originally created and developed in 1893 by Caleb Bradham and introduced as Brad's Drink, it was renamed as Pepsi-Cola in 1898, and then shortened to Pepsi in 1961. History Pepsi wa ...
, and Unilever). In 2016, the Advertising Standards Authority of the United Kingdom ruled that BuzzFeed broke the UK advertising rules for failing to make it clear that an article on "14 Laundry Fails We've All Experienced" that promoted Dylon was an online advertorial paid for by the brand. Although the ASA agreed with BuzzFeed's defense that links to the piece from its homepage and search results clearly labelled the article as "sponsored content", this failed to take into account that individuals might link to the story directly, ruling that the labeling "was not sufficient to make clear that the main content of the web page was an advertorial and that editorial content was therefore retained by the advertiser".


Hiring practices

In February 2016, Scaachi Koul, a Senior Writer for BuzzFeed Canada, tweeted a request for pitches stating that BuzzFeed was "...looking for mostly non-white non-men" followed by "If you are a white man upset that we are looking mostly for non-white non-men I don't care about you go write for Maclean's." When confronted, she followed with the tweet "White men are still permitted to pitch, I will read it, I will consider it. I'm just less interested because, ugh, men." In response to the tweets that were deemed of a misandrist nature, Koul began receiving a barrage of hate comments and threats of violence. Sarmishta Subramanian, a former colleague of Koul's, writing for ''
Maclean's ''Maclean's'', founded in 1905, is a Canadian news magazine reporting on Canadian issues such as politics, pop culture, and current events. Its founder, publisher John Bayne Maclean, established the magazine to provide a uniquely Canadian pers ...
'', condemned the reaction to the tweets, and commented that Koul's request for diversity was appropriate. Subramanian said that her provocative approach raised concerns of
tokenism Tokenism is the practice of making only a perfunctory or symbolic effort to be inclusive to members of minority groups, especially by recruiting people from underrepresented groups in order to give the appearance of racial or gender equality w ...
that might hamper BuzzFeed's stated goals. In January 2019, BuzzFeed announced that it would cut its workforce by 15%. In July 2019 BuzzFeed announced that it would voluntarily recognize an employee union.


Ideology

BuzzFeed states in its editorial guide that "we firmly believe that for a number of issues, including civil rights, women's rights, anti-racism, and LGBT equality, there are not two sides." ''
The Week ''The Week'' is a weekly news magazine with editions in the United Kingdom and United States. The British publication was founded in 1995 and the American edition in 2001. An Australian edition was published from 2008 to 2012. A children's edi ...
''s correspondent Ryan Cooper and American Enterprise Institute's senior fellow Timothy P. Carney at the ''
Washington Examiner The ''Washington Examiner'' is an American conservative news outlet which consists principally of an online/digital website with a weekly magazine, based in Washington, D.C. It is owned by MediaDC, a subsidiary of Clarity Media Group, which is ...
'' raised questions about whether BuzzFeed undermines its credibility by taking sides on political issues. In June 2015, BuzzFeed and websites like the ''Huffington Post'' and
Mashable Mashable is a digital media platform, news website and entertainment company founded by Pete Cashmore in 2005. History Mashable was founded by Pete Cashmore while living in Aberdeen, Scotland, in July 2005. Early iterations of the site were a ...
temporarily changed the theme of their social media avatars to rainbow colors to celebrate same-sex marriage being ruled constitutional in the United States. In June 2016, the left-leaning media watchdog Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting found that in 100 BuzzFeed stories about
Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, Obama was the first Af ...
, 65 were positive, 34 were neutral, and one was critical. The report called BuzzFeed's coverage of Obama "creepy" and "almost uniformly uncritical and often sycophantic." BuzzFeed has partnered with Obama on a get-out-the-vote campaign. During the same month, BuzzFeed cancelled an advertising agreement with the
Republican National Committee The Republican National Committee (RNC) is a U.S. political committee that assists the Republican Party of the United States. It is responsible for developing and promoting the Republican brand and political platform, as well as assisting in ...
over what BuzzFeed founder Jonah Peretti called "offensive remarks" made by
Donald Trump Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021. Trump graduated from the Wharton School of the University of P ...
. Peretti said: "We certainly don't like to turn away revenue that funds all the important work we do across the company. However, in some cases we must make business exceptions: we don't run cigarette ads because they are hazardous to our health, and we won't accept Trump ads for the exact same reason." In January 2017, BuzzFeed released what became known as the " Steele dossier", an uncorroborated private intelligence report that alleges several salacious accusations of Trump. Margaret Sullivan at ''
The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large n ...
'' wrote of the release: "It's a bad idea, and always has been, to publish unverified smears." David Graham at ''
The Atlantic ''The Atlantic'' is an American magazine and multi-platform publisher. It features articles in the fields of politics, foreign affairs, business and the economy, culture and the arts, technology, and science. It was founded in 1857 in Boston, ...
'' called it "an abdication of the basic responsibility of journalism." NBC's Chuck Todd called the release of the document " fake news". Ben Smith defended the decision to release the document from accusations that it was done out of partisanship, arguing that the dossier is of "obvious central public importance."


Awards and recognition

In 2017, BuzzFeed won Webby Awards for Best News App and Best Interview/Talk Show (for '' Another Round''), and president Greg Coleman was named Publishing Executive of the Year by ''
Digiday ''Digiday'' is an online trade magazine for online media founded in 2008 by Nick Friese. It is headquartered in New York City, with offices in London and Tokyo. Description ''Digiday'' provides daily online news about advertising, publishing, a ...
''. In 2018, staff of BuzzFeed news was a finalist for a
Pulitzer Prize The Pulitzer Prize () is an award for achievements in newspaper, magazine, online journalism, literature, and musical composition within the United States. It was established in 1917 by provisions in the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made ...
in their international reporting category for their article that "proved that operatives with apparent ties to
Vladimir Putin Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin; (born 7 October 1952) is a Russian politician and former intelligence officer who holds the office of president of Russia. Putin has served continuously as president or prime minister since 1999: as prime min ...
have engaged in a targeted killing campaign against his perceived enemies on British and American soil". BuzzFeed later won a Pulitzer Prize in 2021 in the international reporting category for an investigative series about the
Xinjiang internment camps The Xinjiang internment camps, officially called vocational education and training centers ( zh, 职业技能教育培训中心, Zhíyè jìnéng jiàoyù péixùn zhōngxīn) by the government of China, are internment camps operated ...
.


See also

*
Mashable Mashable is a digital media platform, news website and entertainment company founded by Pete Cashmore in 2005. History Mashable was founded by Pete Cashmore while living in Aberdeen, Scotland, in July 2005. Early iterations of the site were a ...
* Mic (media company) * Upworthy *
Vice Media Vice Media Group LLC is an American-Canadian digital media and broadcasting company. , the Vice Media Group included five main business areas: VICE.com (digital content); VICE STUDIOS (film and TV production) VICE TV (also known as VICELAND); ...
*
Vox Media Vox Media, Inc. is an American mass media company based in Washington, D.C., and New York City. The company was established in November 2011 by Jim Bankoff and Trei Brundrett to encompass ''SB Nation'' (a sports blog network founded in 2005 b ...


References


Further reading

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External links

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