FAQ

What is this?

String is a one-stop shop for getting your News and sharing your news. It’s a place to conveniently get news and share news with your friends. It’s a place for not only finding out what’s happening but specifically for finding out what matters.

This is a platform just for News for you and your friends to discuss current events. Some platforms are not ideal for getting news, as they crowd feeds with family photos, brunch pictures, and memes. Foreign policy and family photos shouldn’t be on the same platform. We’ve removed all the noise from social media and created a more focused, consolidated way to get your news.

Why is this?

We want to change the way we get the News. We wanted a better, cleaner, and shareable experience for getting News - so we built it. We want to make it easy to follow many sources and expand the variety of news information that people are getting.

Who is this?

A couple of creatives, quants, and engineers. We’re people thinking heavily about how the world works. We’re young people passionate about working towards a more cohesive and better-informed society. We are people who see the world differently and we’re hyper-focused on adding value.

What’s wrong with the status quo?

Society has conflated the utility of news applications with the convenience of the social media app. This is an issue because our feeds are now crowded with polarized opinions, memes, and family photos. There needs to be a platform just for news. We’ll say that again - a platform just for news.

There’s too much noise on social media. We believe that a more specialized platform for news will encourage more informed engagement from our readers.

Is fake news the same thing as bias?

Disinformation and misinformation are unhealthy to the information ecosystem. Both sources and news aggregators have a responsibility to provide truthful and credible information. It’s important to separate disinformation from bias. A little editorial bias is actually necessary for healthy civic engagement, whereas disinformation is not a net positive for the public good.

What is String doing about disinformation?

Social Media has accelerated the way in which information travels - while this is a good thing, It has also increased the prevalence of misinformation and disinformation. Users of social media are inundated with a wide breadth of information that cannot possibly be accurately verified at scale, even with the most sophisticated of machine learning algorithms.

On traditional social media platforms, all users, organizations, or entities are able to create content and disseminate information without any sort of editorial process or preliminary fact-checking. We’ve purposefully limited the content found on String to strictly News content from reputable sources.

By reducing the noise from external content creators and limiting content to reputable sources we are able to present a platform with less noise and more quality content that matters.

How does String get news articles?

String relies on third-party sources to make displaying content possible. Any news sources or content on the platform is provided by third parties. All articles shown are simply links to the source’s website and imagery is from public image URLs.

All content found on this application is licensed and derived via API’s or complies with robots.txt protocols. String is currently a completely free service and is not currently monetizing this product. In the event of monetization String is open to forming symbiotic commercial relationships with News Organizations.

How does String make money?

String is currently free for anyone to use. In the future, we plan to explore different monetization strategies that keep both sources and readers in mind. String does not make any money off of purchases of subscriptions or ads shown from sources on their websites.

In the event that it is necessary for us to monetize, we have different avenues in mind - including but not limited to sponsored content and subscription plans.

How do I claim my source?

You can claim your source by emailing “threads@string.link”. In the subject line type “Claim my source”. The email must come from your organization’s domain. You will receive an email with further instructions on verifying your source.

Is String open to partnerships with news organizations?

Yes. We strive to maintain symbiotic relationships with news organizations by ensuring that sources can get more exposure to users outside of their traditional target markets, while also providing our readers with quality news content.

How do I get in touch with String?

Feel free to reach out to us on social media or contact our CEO directly at c@string.link or threads@string.link

We’re happy to chat about anything and everything.