Transparency at WeSearch.

Transparency is editorial work. The honest version is that any aggregator's neutrality is downstream of which sources it picks and which comments it removes, and the only way for readers to assess that fairly is for the platform to publish its decisions. This page is what WeSearch publishes about itself.

Live numbers

Counts refresh on every page load. Each metric is a direct DB query — no third-party analytics in the path. JSON: /v1/stats/public.

What we publish

The source catalog

Every source we pull from is at /news-sources. The list is regenerated from our feed directory and is current. Adds and removes go into a public changelog (visible on the source's page).

The editorial standards

The criteria we use to add sources, remove sources, moderate comments, and label AI-generated content are at /editorial-standards. The standards are versioned and dated.

The funding

WeSearch is donation-funded. Roughly: $24/month for the droplet, plus bandwidth + Stripe fees + domain renewal. Donations beyond cost roll into improvements (more sources, native apps, comment moderation tooling). Donor names are not published. We don't take ad revenue, sponsored content, investor capital, or affiliate fees inside news pages. Full breakdown.

The architecture

The technical pipeline is at /how-it-works. RSS pull frequency, deduplication strategy, AI usage, push notifications — all documented. The intent is that a technically-curious reader can audit our behavior from the docs.

The privacy posture

What we collect, what we don't, how long it lives, how to delete it, and how we'd respond to a subpoena: /privacy.

What we don't currently publish

• A real-time donation total. We don't show a running total of donations or list donor names. We do publish aggregate financials when asked.
• Per-comment moderation logs. Comments hidden by moderation are not in a public log (though the affected user gets a notice). Aggregate moderation stats are something we'd consider publishing.
• Per-source weighting. We treat all sources equally in the chronological merge — there's nothing to weight. If we ever introduced weighting, we'd publish the algorithm.

How to audit us

If you suspect we're applying a hidden bias, the audit is the source list and the moderation log. The source list is public — count the left-leaning, center, and right-leaning publishers in any topic category and judge the spread yourself. The moderation log isn't public, but you can flag your own removed comment via /support and we'll provide the reasoning.

Conflict-of-interest disclosures

The operator of WeSearch has no equity stake in any of the publishers in the catalog and no advertising relationships with any of them. We don't take editorial direction from donors. We don't accept sponsored content. We don't have an investor cap table. If any of this changes (a formal partnership with a publisher, an investor entering, etc.), we'll disclose at the moment of change and on this page.

Editorial decisions we've published

• We exclude climate-denial press from the climate hub. Reasoning.
• We exclude wellness content that doesn't reference primary research from the health hub. Reasoning.
• We label AI-generated daily editorials and TL;DR summaries as AI-assisted, never as reported journalism. Reasoning.
• We don't apply per-source bias labels in the UI. Reasoning.
• We don't bypass paywalls. Reasoning.

Government requests

If we receive a lawful subpoena, we respond per applicable law. We've received none to date. If we ever do, we'll publish the count (not the contents) on this page.

Reader feedback channel

Editorial criticism — "you should add this source", "you should remove this source", "this comment should not have been hidden", "this AI summary is wrong" — all goes to /support. One human reads it. We don't promise to act on every suggestion, but we promise every suggestion is read.

Why this page exists

Most aggregators don't publish anything resembling this. The structural reason is that opacity is commercially advantageous: opaque source weighting lets you tune for engagement without explaining why a story dropped from the front page; opaque moderation lets you handle problem accounts without litigating each decision in public; opaque funding lets you accept advertiser money without disclosing which advertisers shape coverage. The cost of opacity is that readers have to trust the platform's claims because they have no way to verify them.

Transparency is the alternative model: publish enough that readers can verify your claims, even if some readers won't bother. The bet is that a small fraction of readers will actually audit, that audit makes the rest of the user base safer, and that the platform's incentives stay healthier when "we'd have to disclose this" is in the operator's head before any major decision.

How transparency interacts with moderation

We don't publish a per-comment moderation log because doing so would identify the (anonymous) commenter to anyone reading the log, which violates the anonymity model. We do publish the moderation rules, the appeal process, and aggregate stats when asked. The compromise is the right one in our judgment: identify-protective for individual users, transparent at the policy layer.

Bottom line: who should care about this page

• If you're a journalist or media analyst → this is the page that lets you write about WeSearch without having to take our word for it.
• If you're a regulator or policy professional → the funding, source, and moderation disclosures are here.
• If you're a curious reader who wants to verify our editorial claims → start with /news-sources and /editorial-standards; this page links to both.
• If you've had a comment moderated → the appeal process is at /content-policy and via /support.

Frequently asked