Publishing Principles

Behind Talkies rewards quality journalism through an innovative, decentralized model.

  • Behind Talkies is proud to be an independent and open news platform. News articles are submitted for publication by an open community of delocalized, freelance contributors (termed Blasters) spread all around the world to cover a wide variety of topics, from local news to international political crises, from sports to gaming and entertainment.
  • However, openness requires responsibility: only a portion of proposed content is published on Behind Talkies.
    • After submission, each news article is curated and fact-checked by a team of Reviewers. Reviewers decide if each news article is worthy for publication, if it requires additional work, or if it must be rejected.
    • When a news article is approved by a Reviewer, an additional control step is conducted by the editorial newsroom in London —made by Behind Talkies internal employees—to further prevent the publication of any clickbait and false news content.
  • After publication, each news article is placed in the most relevant Channels, which are vertical proprietary social networks around niche topics where readers can subscribe and engage with content and other users.
  • The circulation of news articles is further augmented by a global team of distributed digital influencers (termed Social Blasters), which promote the best content to reach the highest engaged audience and to make a definitive impact.

Behind Talkies is an open, responsible community: it believes in checks and balances.

  • Behind Talkies is made of an open community of professional journalists, reporters, independent bloggers, writers and storytellers from all over the world. Anybody can be a part of the Behind Talkies community, no matter their gender, location, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, background, or ideas, as long as they create value for the entire community and follow the rules and guidelines.
  • To become a Blaster, there is not any specific requirement, such as a journalistic education or previous experience as a professional journalist. All that is needed is a passion for writing and having a great story to share with the world. Behind Talkies welcomes professional journalists, who are a large part of its team and may enjoy complete editorial freedom: Behind Talkies values any and every perspective.
  • To become a Reviewer, it is mandatory for individuals to have a professional background in journalism, earned either in a journalistic school or while working professionally in reputable, leading magazines. Professionals interested in becoming Reviewers may apply for the role (freelance) by sending their resume to the Behind Talkies career team. If the CV is valued as appropriate, the professionals will be asked to submit news articles previously published in several different magazines and will undertake an interview process with the Behind Talkies internal staff. If the process ends successfully, before receiving access to the platform, each Reviewer must go through an identity verification process.
  • To become a Social Blaster, it is mandatory for an individual to have previous experience in social media, or to prove their ability of being a digital influencer.

Behind Talkies promotes specialization.

  • To maintain the highest quality news and to offer real insights to its readers, Behind Talkies promotes specialization. Contributors are welcome to become experts in their areas of interest, therefore adding further value to the Behind Talkies community. Behind Talkies promotes Blasters and news content that show expertise, authority, and trustworthiness, by showing a label “Expert in …” within their Blaster profiles, when appropriate.

Behind Talkies supports the idea that “There is not a good reason for anonymity” (unless there is a real one) – the Digital Identity Project.

As much as Behind Talkies values each opinion, even the controversial ones (if based on facts and evidences), Behind Talkies firmly believes that everyone should be responsible for their own words. Behind Talkies believes in a free web, where every person takes the responsibility for their own voices.

This is why Behind Talkies started the Digital Identity Project: every contributor will have to give a proof of its real hard identity verified through a hard identification document (such as a passport), not only through the so called social identity.

As soon as the Digital Identity Project is completed, to earn the right to submit content for publication:

  • each contributor will have to submit a copy of his/her passport and a valid phone number
  • Behind Talkies staff, with the support of artificial intelligence technology, will verify the matching between the contributor’s face and the picture on their personal IDs through their mobile phone. For certain contributors, it will also be requested to assess the individual’s social identity (Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter identity)

Contributors can use nicknames while writing on Behind Talkies, but Behind Talkies will have to know the real identity behind the nicknames. However, Behind Talkies will protect its contributors and never disclose their identities, unless it is requested by a Court and required by the applicable law.

Reviewers are identified by their real name and their real name is always shown on the platform, due to the special role they have within the community. Behind Talkies has already verified, through passport checks, all the Reviewers contributing to the platform.

Behind Talkies is neutral. This is its editorial policy.

  • Behind Talkies believes plurality is the answer to many of the toughest questions. Behind Talkies never judges the opinions expressed in the content we publish, but only the legitimacy, accuracy and the factual reality of the content. As a result, Behind Talkies offers a plurality of points of view, which is unique in the editorial landscape.
  • Consequently, Reviewers are neutral. They verify the accuracy of the news articles and the strength of their headlines, but not the points of view, nor the biases that each news article may contain.

Behind Talkies is passionate for both publishing and technology.

  • Behind Talkies’ innovative, fully decentralized model is supported by proprietary and patented technology.
  • A large part of Behind Talkies internal staff is made of extraordinary software engineers.
  • Behind Talkies is actively researching machine learning and AI.