Huffington Post closes contributor platform

Bloggers can no longer share content on the mega network, HuffPost

Many bloggers woke up to a surprising email this morning: The HuffPost will no longer operate it’s contributor program. This program allowed bloggers and individual to create a profile on the site and post articles of their choosing whenever and on whatever topic they wanted. This email was sent to Huffington Post contributors overnight:

Dear HuffPost Contributors,
When HuffPost launched in 2005, it introduced a group blogging platform that revolutionized and democratized online commentary. It allowed teachers, parents and protesters to share space with celebrities, politicians and CEOs while trading ideas on the pressing issues of the day. Over the years, more than 100,000 contributors have posted on the site, with many of you posting from the start.

Today, with the proliferation of social media and self-publishing platforms across the web, people have many more opportunities to share their thoughts and opinions online. At the same time, the quantity and volume of noise means truly being heard is harder than ever. Those who are willing to shout the loudest often drown out new, more-deserving voices. The same has proven to be true on our own platform.

It is with this in mind that we have made the decision to close the contributors platform on our U.S. site. We won’t be taking down or making any changes to previously published content ourselves.

We’ll still be publishing commentary on the site, we’ll just be doing it at much smaller scale, collaborating with writers to share smart, original ideas and making sure that we’re lifting up the voices that have been left out of the conversation in the past. We hope to keep hearing from many of you in the future, and more information about how to pitch us your ideas will be published on the site.

Thanks for being an integral part of the HuffPost community. Your bold, thoughtful contributions to HuffPost’s contributor platform have helped to make us what we are today, and we are so grateful and proud to have had you with us in this endeavor.
Sincerely,
The HuffPost Team

As it states above, content already published will not be taken down but contributors cannot add anything new, even if it was in their drafts. HuffPost already had criticism for not paying bloggers but that didn’t stop about 100,000 people contribute. Now, it seems that is no longer an option either.