Why the Baltimore Informer Doesn’t Have a Facebook Page
The Baltimore Informer runs on a self-hosted server because local journalism belongs to the community, not Mark Zuckerberg’s corporate empire. Big tech spent two decades convincing neighborhood reporters and readers across Baltimore County that an ad-driven social media page constitutes a legitimate public square. That corporate trap forces newsrooms to surrender their archives, work for free–and beg an algorithm for visibility. We refuse to bend the knee to a Silicon Valley monopoly (which registers in Delaware for tax purposes) that treats ground-level investigative work like cheap bait to sell targeted advertisements.
Zuckerberg didn’t pay for the computers. He didn’t pay for the webhosting. He didn’t pay the BGE/Exelon or Verizon FiOS bill. Podcasting equipment and remote interview services were 100% purchased and is maintained by TBI. When links to Informer articles are posted to Facebook, the reach is suppressed.
Zuckerberg didn’t pay for the computer running this website. He didn’t pay for the web hosting. He didn’t pay the BGE or Verizon FiOS bill. We purchased the podcasting equipment and remote interview services with zero corporate help. They are maintained 100% by us, in house. When readers post links to Informer articles on Facebook, the platform suppresses the reach. That’s right. Meta (Facebook’s parent company) engineered its platform to throttle outside web links. This directly sabotages how Baltimore County residents access independent reporting.
It didn’t used to operate this way back when Facebook was a fledgling company. If this newsroom spends 12 hours investigating a contentious Baltimore County Council zoning resolution or tracking millions in Baltimore County Department of Public Works contracts, Facebook’s algorithm hides the link unless we pay to boost the post. They downrank external links aggressively, with platform data showing over 95 percent of feed posts contain no outside sources. They demand creators post native content directly to their servers. Feeding that system turns serious accountability reporting into an unpaid content mill designed solely to keep users trapped inside a corporate walled garden.
That’s right, Meta (Facebook’s parent company) engineered its platform to throttle outside web links, directly sabotaging how Baltimore residents access independent reporting. It didn’t used to be that way, back when Facebook was a fledgling company. If this newsroom spends 12 hours investigating a contentious Baltimore County Council zoning resolution or tracking millions in Department of Public Works contracts, Facebook’s algorithm hides the link unless we pay to boost the post. They downrank outside sources by up to ninety percent, demanding that creators post native content directly to their servers. Feeding that system turns serious accountability reporting into an unpaid content mill designed solely to keep users trapped inside a corporate walled garden.
A walled garden that deserves to be salted.
In addition to all that, the platform operates a cozy surveillance backchannel for government agencies while ignoring everyday citizens facing real threats. When a regular resident walks into a police station or calls them up to report cyberstalking, desk officers might claim their hands are tied. Yet the moment state prosecutors want “private” data, Meta opens its 24 hours a day/7 days per week Law Enforcement Online Request portal and freezes user profiles under federal preservation orders. Meta built a corporate pipeline that serves government power and extracts behavioral telemetry (there’s your $10 SAT word of the day) while treating working-class users like disposable livestock.
Silicon Valley monopolies strip-mined the local merchant advertising that once funded Baltimore County print publications like The Baltimore City Paper (closed up shop in the year 2017) and Towson Times (stopped the print publication earlier this year). As retail revenue fled toward Seattle’s algorithms, the commercial corridors around the Eastpoint area deteriorated and local weekly newspapers like The Dundalk Eagle shrank down to skeleton editions struggling to publish twenty-four pages. Tech giants hoovered up the revenue that kept beat reporters sitting in county courthouse hearings, leaving local communities in an information desert. Arbutus Times, Catonsville Times, Owings Mills Times and North County News? All gone. Handing our reporting to the very machine that crippled local news economics contradicts everything this outlet stands for.
Let’s be real–Facebook Jail is a reality. The platform’s content moderation pipeline relies on secret blacklists and brain-dead automated scrapers that actively penalize the truth. Meta enforces an undisclosed Dangerous Organizations and Individuals registry, hitting users with week-long bans for quoting history or calling out bigotry, while coded street slang harassment slips through the cracks. An algorithm that flags basic political debate while corporate policy executives conceal the rulebook has zero business arbitrating public discourse in Baltimore County.
It’s all fun and games until internet users start using corporate brand names as coded language! Oh, wait–that already happened a decade ago. It didn’t gain too much traction, but “netizens” tried it, an attempt to force the snakes to eat their own tails.
The Baltimore Informer delivers raw, unfiltered accountability by distributing news directly through open RSS feeds, e-mail dispatches (both are coming soon!) and root-domain bookmarks–no corporate middlemen required. We earn our audience through shoe-leather reporting, intersection sign waving and hard public records dot connecting, not by renting audience access from a Silicon Valley monopoly who wouldn’t attend any of our funerals. Facebook should be sponsoring local media, not the other way around. We here at The Baltimore Informer refuse to work as unpaid interns at Facebook.
