YourAnonNews Status Update

May 2014

You may have noticed some chaos taking place on this account lately.  A lot has happened in the last few days.  As the group of @YourAnonNews (YAN) users who have recently inherited this account (after actively maintaining it for quite some time), we would like to bring everyone up to speed on the current state of YAN.

In spring of 2013 those of us not already involved in YAN were asked to help with a fundraiser and to assist in building YourAnonNews into an independent radical media organization.  At the time we were involved with some very successful media / street campaigns and our work began expanding to national environmental causes and shit like that.  When Jackal invited us, we were happy to join the “YAN project” with the agreement that it was to be a collective of equals, no bosses, no alienated labor, and no hierarchy.  Together we were going to create a weekly news show, provide embedded coverage of direct actions, and run a new website to help ignite protest and DIY journalism around the world.  But as you know, it didn’t quite work out like that.

Based on our understanding, the amounts listed by “the board” in the previous truth and reconciliation report seem about right. All spending decisions were made and carried out by Jackal.  We were not consulted prior to any purchases, except the macbook since it was going to be used directly for editing the YAN show. We did not have access to, or handle, any of the money. There was some implicit trust at the start, but with delays and Jackal’s refusal to discuss the money, we eventually all reached the point of concluding the rest of it must be gone.  A programmer working on the site was repeatedly told by Jackal that he would be paid, yet he never received any payment.  We were unsuccessful in receiving an answer to our repeated question - “where did the money go?” and to date can only speculate.

Below is the indiegogo accounting pulled from the previous statement, with some calculations for your convenience. By all accounts it is agreed about 30k is missing.

$54,668.00   Total Raised

$2,186.72     4% indiegogo $1,640.04     3% credit card $8,775.00     Tshirts/hoodies $1,087.44      cups    $200.00         Stickers/buttons  $2,071.27      mac computer  $2,000.00      dell computer   $3,564.00      sprout social (wtf) $1,350.00      server $912.00         dsl

$30,881.53

Remaining

None of us were ever asked to be on the now-defunct board of directors of “Your Anon News, LLC”, and the board never offered us a chance to give input on what direction YAN should take.  We certainly would have been against a public power struggle over which branch of the former YAN board should have control. Our vote?  None of them!  

We have always stressed that @Youranonnews should run on horizontal, egalitarian principles, and not as a top-down non-profit legal entity.

We’re unsure if @Jackalanon is going to pursue some back door account recovery or not (for everyone’s sake we hope he doesn’t) but in the meantime our plan is to open this thing up to anons, independent/DIY journalists, and grassroots organizers who are doing work that is worthy of having a YAN signal boost, because that boost is huge.

We considered deleting the account, or renaming it. But this thing doesn’t belong to us, it is a product of everyone who has ever shared its articles and increased its reach.  We take that responsibility very seriously.

We never asked to be in charge, but we’re happy to steer the ship away from disaster.

We will not exploit YAN for personal gain.

We will not accept money in the name of Anonymous.

We plan on taking @youranonnews back to basics, to ensure this account remains a collective voice to support anonymous ops, radical activists, jailed anons/political prisoners and news that wouldn’t otherwise be told.

(ICYMI: Our recent open letter to Twitter concerning @JackalAnon’s attempt to claim ownership of @YourAnonNews: http://bit.ly/1uM4eKX )