Why I’m No Longer Contributing To Mashable

I give people and organizations three strikes. It seems fair. You mess up once, ok. We make mistakes. You mess up twice, I’m willing to forgive. But three times? No. Sorry. Life is too short.

That’s why I’m no longer going to contribute to Mashable.com.

I’m willing to forgive the thirty posts a day. Let’s face it, this is how the top blogs stay on top. That doesn’t make it right, but I don’t fault Mashable for this.

I’m ok with the obnoxious widgets asking me to share the post. It’s a social media guide, so it would be silly to not have those things.

I’m even willing to forgive them for providing a platform to people like Dan Zarella.

And when Pete Cashmore wrote an op-ed to CNN about how the NYT was wrong to put up a paywall, I let it slide that he didn’t disclose how he might be adversely affected financially by the NYT and other paywalls. Afterall, you can’t lift or link to content that’s behind a wall, and that limits the amount of places Mashable (and any blog) can go to as a source.

All of that I turned a blind eye to. I didn’t like it, but you know what? The ugly social media share buttons and giving a platforms to people with bad ideas and bad information, that’s just the web today. It’s ugly, but it won’t last forever.

But today is my breaking point. I, of little means and little clout, will no longer associate or contribute to Mashable.com.

And here is why:

1) Some jackass decided to fly a plane into a building in Austin, Texas. He put out a manifesto.

Now, it’s well documented that with incidents like this, you (as media) are not supposed to republish manifestos. Doing so spurs copycats and, quite frankly, what some dick has to say who killed someone has little to any real news (or social media) value.

He’s a murderer. We don’t need to understand anything more than that.

And no, sharing his manifesto is not about being a good journalist. That clearly isn’t Mashable’s position when it comes to reporting the news, and that’s evident by looking at any of their news posts.

So the only reason I can think of for them posting the manifesto is for web traffic. And that’s evident with the headline “Austin Pilot Joe Stack Left Disturbing Online Manifesto”.

2) I have a certain threshold for bullshit. And this isn’t me picking on this article’s author (the fact is, I don’t know who he is so this isn’t a judgement on him specifically), but there is a line crossed where a Mashable sponsor’s campaign is identified as “A winning corporate social good campaign” when the campaign JUST STARTED!

HOW THE FUCK IS A CAMPAIGN THAT JUST STARTED A WINNER?

Seriously. What the fuck guys? And who do we trot out to justify the campaign as a success? Jason Falls. Now, I LIKE  Jason Falls. But he is the only point of view presented. There’s no second opinion, and Jason is a social media expert, so … what do you think he’s going to say about a multimillion dollar social media campaign that, if successful, might mean more business for folks like him?

I’m not saying Jason would do that, the fact is, like the author, I don’t know him well enough to assume that. But from the casual observer’s point of view (which is Mashable’s audience), can you see how having a social media expert saying the campaign is a winner would build that impression?

So, I’m sorry folks, but I’m out. All of my initial concerns were the first strike, the last two listed here sealed it.I really like some of the folks at Mashable, but as long as this sort of thing is allowed, I just can’t be associated with it.

You’ll find the last remaining article I did for Mashable (featuring Bill Cosby and Tim Ferriss) over on The Huffington Post*.

* They’re not perfect either, more on that later.