Checking A Website's About Page
Launch library · evergreen read
An About page reveals more than most readers bother to check before trusting a site's content. Who runs the site, what its stated purpose actually is, and occasionally who funds it. A site with no identifiable ownership, no editorial contact, and no clear mission statement deserves noticeably more scepticism than one that is transparent about all three of these things.
Vague or missing About pages are especially common on sites built purely to spread a narrow viewpoint or generate advertising revenue, since genuine transparency would undercut the appearance of neutrality those particular sites are often trying quite hard to project to casual visitors who arrive without ever checking the page closely.
This single check takes well under a minute and meaningfully changes how much weight a claim from an unfamiliar site actually deserves, long before getting into the substance of any individual article published there, making it one of the more efficient checks available to any reader.