Informing the Public of Suppressed Facts
This past week we served over half a million requests in gemini:// (508,434 according to agate logs) and yesterday close to half a million Web requests, mostly because of European Patent Office (EPO) coverage. It does seem like almost everyone there reads Techrights, some folks more regularly or more frequently than others. There's lots more coming about the EPO's "Cocainegate" scandal; we're barely even halfway there. We still get told that many people, even the President, are cocaine users. The Club Med/EUIPO issue continues to grow.
Our coverage about IBM RAs was almost unique; somehow no news sites bothered to properly investigate the matter. Some just relayed the talking points of IBM's PR, which covered up for IBM's HR. It's symptomatic of a broader phenomenon.
The bottom line is, if you investigate things and properly assess the facts (rather than parrot what other sites say), people will come. There's no financial reward for this (we lose money on this site; we don't intend to ever profit from it), but there is more to life than money. The goal is justice through accountability, not profit. Free society comes with a price tag and freedom necessitates eternal vigilance. It takes resilience and sacrifices. As my wife habitually puts it in tuxmachines.org, do your share, do not assume others will protect your freedom (including freedom of information) for you. We are all in this together. █