Odysee Unveils 'Portal' with Independent Media Alliance as Flagship Partner for New Decentralized Publishing Platform

Led by Whitney Webb, Derrick Broze, and Ryan Cristián, the Independent Media Alliance will pioneer Odysee's revolutionary Portal technology in the emerging Decentralized Media Ecosystem
NEW YORK, May 30, 2025--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Odysee announces Portal, a groundbreaking decentralized publishing platform that will transform how independent media operates online. The Independent Media Alliance (IMA) — featuring prominent voices Whitney Webb, Derrick Broze, and Ryan Cristián of The Last American Vagabond — will serve as the flagship partner, operating as the first major Portal within Odysee's broader Decentralized Media Ecosystem (DME).
Odysee Founder and CEO Julian Chandra states the IMA is intended to showcase how decentralized technologies can empower independent media to maintain direct relationships with their audiences, free from the editorial filters and algorithmic controls of centralized platforms.
"Portal is about returning control to the creators," said Chandra. "The Independent Media Alliance shows how groups of journalists can build their own spaces, manage their own communities, and protect the integrity of their work without reliance on centralized platforms."
A Response to Centralized Censorship
The Independent Media Alliance emerges at a time of growing concern over censorship, deplatforming, and algorithmic suppression across major technology platforms. Many independent journalists argue that these dynamics restrict their ability to reach audiences, particularly on sensitive topics related to public health, foreign policy, and government accountability.
Whitney Webb, an investigative journalist known for her reporting on intelligence agencies and global corporate networks, has consistently warned about the dangers of media consolidation. Through her platform Unlimited Hangout, Webb has produced long-form investigations that challenge dominant narratives and highlight underreported stories.
"The online media landscape, despite the plummeting trust in mainstream media, has never been more weaponized and difficult to navigate," stated Webb. "By pooling our collective resources and creating some new resources, the goal is for this group of principled independent journalists and content creators, who have proven themselves over the past several years as willing to challenge official narratives even when difficult, to be able to withstand the increasing pressures of disseminating adversarial content in an increasingly adversarial social media landscape."
Similarly, Derrick Broze, founder of The Conscious Resistance Network, has advocated for decentralized alternatives to mainstream platforms. "Together we have the power to maximize our reach and counter false solutions and narratives which are infecting the indie media and 'truth community'," Broze said in a recent public statement endorsing the IMA's mission. "We believe there has never been a more important time for independent, principled journalists and content creators to collaborate more than ever."
The Last American Vagabond, led by Ryan Cristián, has gained a substantial following for its critical analysis of geopolitics, health freedom, and civil liberties. Cristián's work emphasizes the importance of transparency and the dangers of allowing centralized platforms to dictate the scope of public discourse. "At a time when objective, non-partisan media is under more attack than ever, and the two party illusion has never been more vulnerable, like the cornered animal it is, the system lashes out at those who try to change it," Cristián explains. "Whitney, Derrick and I decided to start this Independent Media Alliance to organize against this rising threat using objective, well-researched journalism and collaboration."
The creation of the Independent Media Alliance represents a collective effort by these and other figures to reclaim control over their work and to engage directly with their audiences without external interference. The alliance will conduct regular panels and debates featuring members and guests, collaborative investigations, and content distribution through Portal to ensure it cannot be easily censored.
Portal: A Decentralized Publishing Platform
Portal, developed by the Odysee Team, is a decentralized publishing system designed to allow communities and organizations to manage their own spaces independently of traditional centralized platforms. Functionally similar to website-building tools but with significant advantages, Portal provides the technical infrastructure for creators to launch customizable websites in a decentralized environment where they retain full control.
Rather than relying on external infrastructure, Portal users will be able to establish their own commenting systems, messaging functions, content moderation policies, monetization models, and customized site designs.
The Independent Media Alliance will operate as one such Portal. By controlling the tools for community interaction, content hosting, and financial support, the IMA intends to minimize reliance on centralized intermediaries and maintain full editorial autonomy. The platform will serve as a key distribution channel for the alliance's collaborative investigations and content focused on countering narratives around the "false two-party paradigm, support for imperial wars, 5th Generation Warfare, and technocratic solutions to legitimate problems."
The Odysee Team created Portal to offer organizations like the IMA a way to distribute and manage content without the risks of algorithmic suppression, deplatforming, or third-party moderation. Each Portal, including the IMA's, will function autonomously within the broader Decentralized Media Ecosystem.
"Platforms shouldn't decide what audiences see or how creators connect with their communities," said Chandra. "We believe decentralization offers a better path forward — one that puts power back in the hands of journalists and the public."
Key Advantages of Portal
Portal offers several critical advantages over traditional publishing platforms:
Content Sovereignty: Contributors retain legal ownership of their work unless explicitly transferred, making it ideal for collaborative publishing projects
Contributor Autonomy: Self-publishing or submission workflows can be customized without complex plugins
Enhanced Transparency: Built-in support for edit history and transparent moderation, with admins able to set their preferred level of openness
Decentralized Architecture: Content can be optionally stored on immutable, censorship-resistant platforms like Arweave
Structured Governance: Tailored for collectives or movements where multiple editors, contributors, and policies need to coexist
Seamless DME Integration: Native compatibility with the broader Decentralized Media Ecosystem for content syndication and sharing
A Growing Movement Toward Independent Infrastructure
The formation of the Independent Media Alliance reflects a broader movement among journalists, content creators, and activists seeking to build their own resilient infrastructure for communication and community-building. As centralized platforms face increased criticism over content moderation practices and political influence, the need for independent alternatives has become more urgent.
Those close to the project describe it as an effort to foster transparency, protect editorial independence, and create a sustainable alternative to traditional media channels.
"You're seeing a lot of established prominent creators increasingly launching their own micro-communities where they communicate directly with their audience separate from larger platforms," notes Chandra. "We're enabling a return closer to the diverse internet landscape of the past, where there were many different websites rather than just a few that everybody visits today."
Supporters argue that the Independent Media Alliance could serve as a model for how journalism can adapt to the challenges of the digital era — leveraging decentralized tools to maintain freedom of expression and ensure that critical reporting continues to reach audiences worldwide.
As the media landscape continues to evolve, the success of initiatives like the Independent Media Alliance may signal a turning point for how journalism organizes itself in a decentralized future — a future less dependent on corporate platforms and more rooted in direct relationships between creators and their communities.
About the Independent Media Alliance
The Independent Media Alliance (IMA) brings together several established independent journalists and media platforms, including:
Whitney Webb - Investigative journalist and founder of Unlimited Hangout, known for in-depth reporting on intelligence agencies and global corporate networks
Derrick Broze - Founder of The Conscious Resistance Network, investigative journalist, documentary film maker and advocate for decentralized media solutions
Ryan Cristián - Founder of The Last American Vagabond, focusing on geopolitics, health freedom, and civil liberties
The alliance aims to create a sustainable model for independent journalism through decentralized technology, direct audience relationships, and collaborative approaches to newsgathering and distribution.
About Odysee
Odysee is a Web3 video-sharing platform committed to free speech and creator sovereignty, serving over 15 million users worldwide. Founded and led by Julian Chandra, Odysee was acquired by Forward Research in 2024 to accelerate its mission of building a resilient, censorship-resistant media infrastructure. Through its integration with decentralized technologies like Arweave, Odysee strengthens its promise of content permanence, transparency, and user control.
Developed by the Odysee team, Portal is a decentralized publishing system that enables anyone to launch their own website or media hub with full ownership and no intermediaries. Creators and communities can independently control how their content is published, discovered, and monetized---without relying on centralized platforms or algorithms. As part of Odysee's broader Decentralized Media Ecosystem (DME), Portal empowers a new generation of independent media to thrive on their own terms.
View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20250527428788/en/
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Press Contact: contact@odysee.com

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Candle Media is also behind the children's program Cocomelon — Mayer discusses what's next for the popular brand. All right, welcome to a new episode of the opening bid podcast. I'm Yahoo Finance executive editor Brian Sazi, and like I always say this, the podcast will make you a smarter investor this is a very special episode for really many reasons. One, we're taping this inside Spotify's Beach House at Canned Lyons. For those of you not familiar, what the hell that even is, uh, every year Can Lyon's big advertising media festival, lots of the big media brands come here, set up on the beach, tell people what they're working on, and ask for money and say lots of great I should mention is down under the beach. We have the best beach setup. I love the Spotify setup, but you know, I do work for Yahoo, uh, but we appreciate Spotify for having us. And the second part of this special, uh, shout out is, uh, my guest Kevin Mayer, uh, Kendall Media CEO. Good to see you. Um, see you. You remember me from day one. I can't believe I'm actually sitting in this beast house with you. Like, I was just starting my career, basically, man, and it's going. Great. Thank you. Congratulations. I was looking for the applause. I was just trying to like, you know, get into the vibe my first time sitting down on one of these podcasts. I sit in stools, a little uncomfortable, but you know that's great condition so no complaints. It is always good to see you. So what has been, I followed your whole journey here at Candle Media, even when you're back to launch, you know, this year as you're talking to folks looking for deals, doing what you do, you know, what's been top ofmind? Well, a lot of things are happening in the media business, which I guess we'll end up talking about, butYou know, candle media, uh, spans the, the whole spectrum of, of media. We have traditional media, we have hella Sunshine, you know, film and television, Reese's Book Club, a lot of community efforts online that are that are that are working on social media. Um, that's a great business. It's fully exposed to the traditional media ecosystem in a way that's, you know, interesting. I can't wait to talk about that. Do we have to talk aboutlike how media is likedying? I mean, media is having a tough, tough moment. Well said, and having a tough moment and doesn't seem like there's any relief in sight in the short term. I think that, you know, the contraction of the, you know, the maturing, I should say, of the streaming businesses I was going to be the savior of of media when pay TV in the US has been declining so dramatically. Well, pay TV is continuing to decline. I don't see any end in sight there. Uh, it might hit a stable point at some at some level of subscribership, but who knows? It's, it's an old model and it's time has passed, I think for those not familiar with your career, I mean, you spent what, many years, 25 years so you've evolved in a in a big way. What is, what is next? And you know we'll dive more into it, but Warner Brothers is, is splitting up into two. You have Comcast splitting feels like the whole industry is falling apart. It's subject to a lot of headwinds, and there really are, Brian, some major, major headwinds here and pay TV is at the center of it. For many decades, pay TV was a growth, it was a growth medium households, if you wanted one channel, you had to pay for all channels. That is a nice business model. So you can make the argument that media was over earning for a long period of time. They were pulling more profits out of the ecosystem the value they were providing and that's that's what I would call over earning. So great business while I was in growth mode at Disney, ESPN was leading the charge, it was then ever since 2013 or so it started to peak and then it's been coming down so it's, it's not a new phenomenon, but pay TV is under very big pressure. That's where the earnings come from. That's compressing the business in a big, big way. Streaming was a was a savior. It had its growth moment and that's becoming mature too, not only the US but around the world, Disney, yeah, yes, and, and the streaming business, you have to, you have to be in expect to to access your high quality programming over the top and these, you know, in streaming that's that's, that's the model that that consumers want you got to meet them where they are. That's a, that's just a paradigm you have to do it's not as profitable as pay TV. No one expected we all knew it would never be as profitable, and these are, these are tectonic shifts that just happened. Look at the music industry, you know, they had the bundle, the CD bundle until 1999, and that fell apart from CDs. CDs? I do remember that was a greatbusiness for me. It was. I showed up at Sam Goody, got my 10 CDs. I remember Columbia House. Well, you would see the mail, yeah, yeah, the tapes, what a terrible business model that was. I mean that was just. It was not good for consumers, I'll tell you that. Now consumers are benefiting. There's more choice than ever. It's more convenient than ever. You can get the programming you want on the device you want at the time you want, the location you want. It's great for consumers and consumers are now in command in a way they never have been, and that's that's causing pressure on social media. Can I askyou just a normal human question? With TVs declining, why won't my cable bill go down?Will it ever go cables go up. That's all they ever do. That's all they ever do. Look, there will be a repackaging that happens in the past and the bill you have now. It's all the sports channels, it's all the general general entertainment channels, all the news channels. It's a very expansive bundle. That's the only way you can buy cable one of the reasons it's, it's not in favor anymore because again, if you just wanted to watch a few channels, you gotta pay for 120 channels, 200 channels, 300 channels. If you're not a sports fan, you had to pay for sports before. Sports are very expensive. That is not consumer friendly, that is changing and until they, you see these new packages forming, I think sports there may be sports packages if you're just a sports fan, all all you buy is sports. If you're a general entertainment, uh, fan, don't have to buy sports going forward. So I think you'll see some repackaging, but it's a little late unfortunately. Are yousigning up for $300 a year for ESPN Plus that's gonna launch later this course. I'm a Disney. I, I launched ESPN Plus. I'm definitely signed up for it. By the way, that's a good deal. I think they're gonna be, you know, $300 a year. I think I never heard the yearly price, the annual price, but you know, $30 a month, a they have a lot of sports, probably 60% of all the sports that are in broadcast are on ESPN. It's gonna replicate everything that you get in your pay TV bundle for $30 in it has extra features, and I think the plans that they're having, the interactivity that are that's part of that platform when you see it come out when you see it launched, I think it's later this summer. I don't have sports betting doesn't have betting too. Yeah, I betting. They did a deal with, uh, Penn, uh, sports betting, and they'll, and if you think about it, you're watching live, you have your fantasy, you know, sports going, and you have your betting going and it's all on the same screen and you can place bets, you can do prop bets, who's gonna score the next touchdown. You can do all this stuff in real watching the high quality stream that ESPN is providing, I think it's a winning business model, but it's not pay TV. All I need to be like order food. If I just be able to order food from it, then I have no reason to go to work. Like you're just on this app. It's the true super app. Like why even leave the app? But my question is, you know, on the linear, going back to the linear TV networks, what happens to these assets? So Comcast splits this thing off with its strange name. You have Warner Brothers Discovery, uh, that asset out there. Which is also split, yes, so they just these the linear networks or the TV networks just they're floating out there like what happens to them? Does private equity come in and buy them? Do they get managed down to nothing over time? I think private equities is the solution here because they private equity guys know how to manage these businesses in decline. They're still profitable in some instances highly profitable, but they're on a very substantial secular decline curve which is immutable. I think it's going to continue to happen. So these linear assets are, um, are shrinking. um, it's very difficult to manage a growth business alongside a really declining business like that, so I think it is smart to split might be a unique, unique, um, company in that regard because there's a lot of synergies between the two. But if you just have cable networks and you have and you have a studio, those should be split because studios are more stable and they're not in high growth mode either, by the way, but at least they're not, they're not declining in the same way that cable assets are and that most of these studios have a stream, have a streaming service associated with it. So you keep the streaming service like Warner Brothers did and Comcast and you keep the, you keep content and IP generation engines keep those together. That's stable to growing and these assets that are declining so dramatically better managed by someone who knows how to do that. Aren't you glad you don't have to be part of this crap? You could just do what you do? Yes, I mean this is, I mean you sound like awful gigs, especially right now over the past year and a half. You're gonna spend most of your time in spreadsheets. You can't necessarily talk about amazing content everything's managed down to the penny and you're firing people. I mean this, this sucks. It's not, this hasn't been a good few years and it's been, it's been tough. All the CEOs, you know, I know them all. They, it's, it's been, it's been, it's been difficult. And do I, you know, do I wish I was in that seat right now? You know, probably not, but they're still good seats. They're still, it's a fun job and as these, these are, you know, you're creating movies and and film and TV. It's, it's fun. It's will be the the thing that gets hurt at the end. No, if you are so focused on cutting expenses laying people off or letting AI roll through your creative departments like what does it mean for content? Content squeezed right now and it takes a lot of money to create great you're doing traditional film and TV length content at a high production value, it's expensive, so getting more expensive. AI might come might be helpful there a little bit because AI is a tool that can help help increase efficiencies in creating video and storylines and everything have to be careful how you you have to titrate that very carefully. You can't really depend on AI too much, but as a tool for creative, uh, executives and creative people, I think it may it'll actually help with the efficiency, but content's squeezed. There's no longer the revenue base to to afford as much content as once was the case with when peak TV was peaking 3 or 4 years ago. This is not enough money to cover that anymore, so content is definitely coming down. Icaught up with Lee, former BET CEO, she's on the board of Warner Brothers. She could talk much about that situation, as you can imagine, but she made a good point that we are, we may be at peak streaming. And how much more content do we, can we stuff on here? I mean, I only have two eyeballs. Like you can only watch so much content. I think she's right. I think that's what that's what you're saying. The streamers are buying less content, you know, Netflix is an outlier. Netflix has kind of kept their $17 to $18 billion dollar content spend pretty a little bit more sports in there than there used to be, so entertainment content's gone down probably a little bit, um, but the other streamers, they were in growth mode. Remember 3 or 4 years ago before the Netflix reset of 2 years ago before they had that flat quarter or down quarter actually. I remember the investors really pivoted and said, OK, it's not growth anymore, it's profitability. So finding profitable growth has been the key and all the other streaming services have had to cut back on their expenses and and there the amount of content they're some, in some instances I think it was a wise thing to do and, and, and you should have done it anyway. In other instances it was just driven by the economics. What do you mean it seems like to your point on Netflix that quarter, that I remember that quarter, it was a real, it wasn't a good quarter, but since then something has been unlocked at Netflix. I mean every quarter has been not just a little bit, I mean explosive sequentially growth numbers, profitability. I mean what, what drives that? Netflix is really good at what they do. They invented streaming, essentially, um, they know how to manage it. There are 3 levers if you're streaming. It's customer acquisition. It's RPU, you know, average revenue per user per it's churn. They and they know so much about their consumers and they have so much experience delivering content to their consumers and getting feedback from the consumers about what content they love. They can rescue uh a subscriber who's at risk because they can see it. Oh, this person used to watch 3 hours a week. Now they're on a 2.7 and then 2.5. We have we get some content in front of them to save them. They're incredibly good at that. They have the systems in place to do it. I think all the other streamers are getting but they're way far ahead, so they know how to market the price, and they know how to save customers, and that's the key. You know what content got me recently? I forgot if this was Netflix or Amazon. Nona. Did you see that? I haven't seen it. Oh gosh, I mean, what a hell of an idea. I mean, I don't even know what is it. So it was, uh, this guy, uh, he ended up opening a restaurant maybe in Brooklyn or Jersey based on a true story, and he hired an Italian restaurant, hired retired grandmothers to the restaurant, so we hired 4. I mean, I'm like, why didn't I think of that? What a hell of an idea. Opened the restaurant with 4 Italian grandmothers that clearly knew how to cook. I mean, it's an actual restaurant. I mean, that's have you been there? No, I haven't been there, but that's the content I need. I need to see more of those stories. Well, they're inexpensive too, right? Um, something based on reality and that's why you see a lot more factual TV happening, um, because it's cheaper and it's less expensive, butNetflix continues to churn out huge hits, high quality content, so does Disney. So does so does Warner Brothers, and you know they all can create hits. It's just the expense is not being covered by the revenue, and you're gonna see consolidation, and that's what these, that's what these, yeah, and, and streaming and in every the entire business is consolidating, but streaming has to consolidate too. Should there be a Paramount Plaza and a peacock is that, does that make sense? So think of the redundant operating expenses that entails. It's millions, tens of millions of dollars a year just and platform expense and employee expense, it's a lot. Why shouldn't those be together in a declining business economics 101. If your revenue is declining, you take your expense bases and collapse them, and that's what you're gonna see that in streaming. I mean, is that coming up soon too so if I'm Netflix, I see Comcast doing its thing, and you think, I guess the new Comcast team that manages that streaming asset, they say, all right, we're just gonna fall into the Netflix umbrella. Those talks like this this chatter that thatcan happen? I don't, I don't know. I don't know the chatter that is going on out there, but yeah, I think you'll see.I don't think Netflix is is gonna buy or merge with any streamers. I do. I think the smaller streamers were gonna merge among themselves in a kind of a horizontal merger situation because they just don't have enough revenue to cover the expenses. Delivering content over the internet in a high quality way is not cheap, and you, and that's where the cost base really accrues. The big technology platforms that have to be deployed you have to spend on content, you have to source content from around the world because people expect foreign content now and they expect the highest quality content, you're a pitched battle with Netflix and Disney Plus which is doing really this hard to do that when your revenue shrink. It isn't growing the way itshould. Well, I'm not cheap either. I mean, I, I'm, I'm at $500 million a year, Kevin. No, I guess we hang with this to consolidate you, please. Well, don't tell anybody that. Oh, actually I just sit on a hot mic. All right, we'll be right back on opening right, welcome back to Opening Bid. We're having a special, uh, episode here at Spotify, Spotify's Beach House, uh, at Ken and Lyons. I'm a great chat here with, uh, a friend of the show, Kevin Mayer, uh, Candle Media CEO. So we haven't talked a lot about Disney. I talked to you last year down on Yahoo Pier about the state of Disney, and I remember asking you, you were, are you still advising Bob Iger? Are you still not officially, no, not officially, um, why has Disney made a decision to spin off its TV assets? It's an interesting question, has some very strong cable assets. Look at FX as a as a as a case in point. That's a that's a Fox, that was Fox owned cable network, general entertainment, edgy content, great content. I love FX and I'm not sure if you enjoy those shows or not, but we, the first thing we did, we bought control of Hulu back in 2018, 2019. I was still running, running it then. We took FX and John Landgraf is the, you know, runs FX. He's probably the best TV executive there is. He's, he's we collaborated on, hey, why don't we take FX that brand, and then put it into Hulu as a key brand on Hulu, and then we look, we still have the network, we still get paid by, you know, by cable operators on a per month per subscriber basis it's profitable but start taking the content and sharing it among sharing it with almost immediately when it's streaming service and channel, you know, linear channel, uh, network. So you're taking one piece of content and deploying it in against two revenue streams almost it's almost like creating consolidation uh when there was one to begin with. So taking two revenue streams, you're advertising this content over over both of them, and that can create a beneficial financial outcome. So if your, if your cable networks are strong enough and your brands are strong enough, there could be a rationale for doing that. I could just as easily make the argument that Disney should spend off their linear know, Bob and the team there thinks that that that that cost sharing, that revenue, um, amortization is the right way to go. If you have weaker networks and it's not really, you don't have the same high quality content to share among the two, it's probably best to just spend them you, if your, if your networks are mostly, which most cable networks are just reruns with very few originals, it doesn't make sense to have them anymore. You don't get the same benefit that I just described that FX and Hulu had, for instance. So if you're making a lot of original content, it could make sense to do it. Disney is an example of that. If your cable networks don't enjoy that, off theygo. What do you think over time Disney will have to, just given the structural headwinds industry, it's gonna have, they will have to make that decision to follow everyone else or they're just gonna stick it out, or that's up to the newCEO. It's up to the new CEO.I think that's the right, that's the way it should be too, Rolling. It should be up to the new CEO, whoever thatis. I mean, do you think, I mean, is that near, is that, I mean, the decision.I've heard could come later this year. I mean, it has to come at some point. I mean Bob's not gonna stay there for the next 10 years. No, Ithink not, um, and I think that it will come. I think they've said either late this year or early next year, and I have no, I have no inside information on that at all, 0, but they're gonna, I mean there will be a new CEO. does, how to take us through that process, like how do you, what does the next CEO of Disney need do or you know who, who is not who is this person, but what what's the skill set they need, you think? Disney is a creative company at heart, so you have to have a you have to have some creativity in that, um, a new CEO is really good at, at least managing creativity well not necessarily have to be a creative executive, but you have to know what creativity is. You have to be able to manage creative people, um, the egos around Hollywood. You gotta be good at that. I mean, it's not easy. They're around every corner. They're around every corner you run into an ego here and there. So, so you have to be good at that and you have to have right temperament to deal with that. It is not easy. It's not for everyone, but by and large, I think the biggest skill set you have a, you have to have a real strategic business sense because there's a bunch of assets at Disney that are globally deployed as multifaceted from theme parks to consumer products to movies to film to TV to Disney Plus, Hulu, ESPN or whatever, you know, ESPN, which is not called flagship, the streaming service, you gotta manage a lot and then you have to also decide what assets do we keep, what assets do we add so there's a whole portfolio management issue that's that's that's lurking there. So you have to be a pretty strategic business executive and you have to know the nuts and bolts of how business works. You had to be pretty good at finance. You had to be creative friendly. That is a hard person to find. Not many of them around. So a new new CEO starts some point next year, you know what, you know, what do they do that 1st 6 months? Every, every new CEO comes try to get to understand the people, the operations, but theoretically this person may come from inside Disney like, and Bob is handing them off Bobiography of Disney is handing them off an asset that's been restructured. Hulu is now part of the, uh, company, uh, part of a new acquisition. Like what else is there to tinker with or do? If I were, you know, gonna advise the new CEO of Disney, I would say stay close to Bob Iger for the 1st 6 months, really take that apprenticeship to heart because Bob is an amazing CEO. There's very few like him. Um, if you can just be at his side and look at, you know, the whole company, you know, I mean, I think it will come from internal. I just expect that it will, and I, I think it'll be one of, you know, Dana Walden or Josh Demaro that's likely, it seems like to me, one of those two. I don't know again, I really do not know, get close to Bob stay stick by his side and just learn how he does things because he's, he's amazing, and I did that. I was super close to Bob when I was there. That's how you learn. So doesn't sound that exciting. So stay close to Bob. Learn the businesses that you haven't come from. In Dana's instance, that would be theme parks and and consumer products, and in Josh's instance it would be the media businesses. Learn from the best. Bob, that's what I would, that's what I think the 1st 6 months should be all then you got to start making decisions as someone that, uh, I, full disclosure, I watched Bob's master class, so he taped the master class. I know I've seen it. Yeah, I mean I've watched it twice and I'm like, wow, he's good, isn't he? I mean he's like what what has made him so good? Uh, you know, these CEO jobs, you don't keep them forever. Um, some cases short shelf life, 3 to 5 years, you make it past 5 years, you're like, all right, I've done something right, but I been the face of this company for well over 1010 years? Oh, and well, in 2005 is when he, he was back at ABC. Well we bought ABC, uh, Disney that I was, I was there at the time in 1996, I think it was. He came and then he was the chief operating officer. I don't have his each date memorized, but for about 5 or 10 years he was the chief operating officer, then he ascended to when Michael Eisner left in 2005, from 2005 to 2020, you know, so that's 15 years there. He left for a couple of years, famously came back it's been back for several years, so you know, it's probably close to 20 years. But when you have someone like Bob Iyer, you, you, you keep them. Yeah, I don't know, I don't know any other CEOs that have been on leading. I mean, I think Mary Barrow is on what on the Disney board. I mean she's been, she's been there, CEO, CEO. I mean they just have that, that knack, also led TikTok, uh in in in the in the US, uh, no, no, globally, globally, um, key decision for them June 19th, uh, if that deadline is going to get, um, extended or not, what happenslike what like I have no idea. Look, it's the Biden administration had won the last, you know, if Kamala Harris had won the election, I think TikTok would now be banned, frankly, I, I think that's the probable outcome because I think that, you know, that was the, that's where they were going. They were behind that. Trump came in. I don't know what he's gonna do. He, he used TikTok to help win the election, so, you know, he wants to, he wants to keep it around. I don't know he said a few times, you know, I have a soft spot in my heart for TikTok. So do I, by the way. It's an incredible product and an incredible service, um, so I hope it doesn't get banned. I hope desperately it doesn't get banned.I don't think it will. I think he'll probably extend again. It's a complicated thing. They have to, you know, the law that is in place, he has to follow the law, obviously, um, I think you have to get down below 20%. ByteDance and Chinese ownership has to go below 20% from the from the 100% that it is now. I suspect they'll end up bringing new investors in. They'll do they'll make some sort of deal with, um, to get ByteDance below 20% without actually selling it to to another company, and I think that would probably satisfy the national security what I don't know what happens like who runs it? Is it part of TikTok still? Is it something and it would only be the US at that point. So yeah, that'd be then your previous statement would have been right. Look, it's a great, it's, it's great. It's, it's just a great thing. I hope, I hope that Trump does solve it, um, because it'd be, it would be a shame to to rob that voice to from, you know, Americans. It's it's, it's an important platform, you know, we also echoed that echoed that. I'm surprised. Uh, I talked to ExC Linda Yacario here, um, at Ken Lyons, and she.I, I forgot the exact quote, but you said we don't support any social media company being shut down, and that left an impression on me because if they do shut down what a huge potential tailwind to ex uh Facebook, Instagram I it is shut down, like what does it mean to the broader ecosystem of social media? Well, I'll tell you something you can look at it has happened. So when I was when I was CEO of TikTok, we got shut down in India. It is still shut down in India. What happened? Reels became, you know, Instagram reels became essentially would happen here? Instagram reels, YouTube shorts, you know, YouTube is now taken, you know, a big swipe at that vertical video, short form video business, and they're doing really, really well. So there are two other platforms, I think, that are already in place that have huge user group, you know, user bases and have a similar technology that, uh, TikTok has, and TikTok's lead in AI has diminished somewhat, you know, the for you page was for a long time for that 4 you feed was unimaginably personalized. You couldn't even imagine how they're doing it. It was like know, frankly, Wheels is kind of similar, and YouTube Shorts definitely is, and Neil Mohan is crushing it and and so is wouldn't, it would, it would be bad. I think it, it shouldn't be banned, but that's what, that's where people would go to those two platforms, I think. I'veonly made one post on TikTok and I'll tell you why, um.I, I can't seem to get the cuts right and the technology to use it, I mean, it took me like an hour and I'm I was going to lose my mind. I don't have the patience to do it because you're not a 12 year old, is thata thing? That's what I,I'm 43. I mean, we both look fabulous but the thing is like I just, I didn't have the time to do it. I've been spending more time on, I mean, I've always been on X. I've been on X since uh, Instagram, you know, I guess this is the speed and the immediacy of creating content, uh, that's why it's got me. Yeah, look, it's, it's hard to create content. That's why if you look at these social, you know, TikTok isn't really social media, it's more like it's social entertainment, as is YouTube, by the way. There's not a lot of, there's not a lot of communication or social activity that happens on those two platforms. Neil's crushed it. Neil's crushed it is crushedit totally different platform. Now the AI stuff is hitting on there. It's amazing, hard to do, so I think the participation rates, the uploading rates of people of, you know, uploaders to users, is pretty small. I think there's probably 5 or 10% of the of the actual user user base is actually creating and I don't think it will continue. It's hard, you know, to make a really good, um, TikTok or YouTube short that you're proud of, it takes some effort, you know, especially for us old folks. I, I, it's hard to do using Cacut and all those things that I don't have time. I can't even cap cutis and it's the best one. It is the best one frustrating, frustrating anyway, um, we've talked a lot about other, other companies. We talked a little bit about Candle Media whatWhat's your, what's next for you in Candle Media, um, new projects who you're working with, uh, I mentioned what Reese, uh, Witherspoon, yeah, yeah, how do you work with her? She's right. Reese founded Hello Onshine. That's the first company that we bought in Candle Media, um, that is a very sort of social media forward engagement forward, um, highly curated brand that's very we've had a really good success there. Um, it's been tough because I, I just described the headwinds and in and in media, and they're exposed to that obviously, um, so it's, it's growth has been hard to come by, but their, um, creative output is amazing. Reese's involvement is, is great. We have a really great CEO over there called Sarah and it's a business that creates great product, great creative product, and she also, we also have Reese's Book Club that she's put together over the last, you know, decade, which is a very powerful voice for women. It really is. I mean if you talk to women, you know, 25 to 54 and that kind of traditional like age age group, she's like the Oprah Winfrey for that group. She really is. She's achieved that and so she has a lot of resonance, um, with that, with, with that audience, and she's very big and very active on social media. So the whole concept there was taking traditional that storytelling to social media and creating commerce opportunities out of that, um, we've also done some live activations, um, or we just, she just announced today at Cannes actually she was here for a couple hours, announced this thing called Sunny, which is a new brand that Reese is gonna take that exact same approach of curation book club activations for Gen Z Girls and Gen Z Girls have probably been, you could argue have been underserved today in in storytelling and I think there's a great, a great outcome there. So hell Sunshine is part of candle, and the other big asset we have is called Moon bug. And for those who have parents who have small kids, they'll know Cocoaelon, which is an amazing preschool. So addicting. My nieces and nephews, all they watch is. Well, I don't know about addicting. It's very engaging. Iknew you were gonna get me on that one, but I'm just repeating my brother told me. I mean, it's just, I don't have any kids, so I mean, I, but I see what they watch all the time. It is, they're glued to it, let's just put it that way. It's, it's very enriching. I mean we we we, we create that content very and it's meant to, it's, it's soothing, it's nursery rhymes, it's fun. It's very gentle 3D animation. These things run 3 to 7 minutes. They are for free on YouTube. Uh, on YouTube we have almost 200 million subscribers around the world just to the English language channel. We have other channels too. In total, Moonbug has 750 million subscribers on YouTube, and Moonbug, unlike Hello Sunshine, which is more traditional media centric and then extending it to other is focused on YouTube and every property we have within Moonbug, it's Cocomelon, it's Blippy. You may have heard of Blippy too, which is more of a live action show. There's a little angels we have 29 different properties, um, and they're, they're very, very big Cocaelon being the biggest one. Those originated on YouTube and then we took that YouTube multi-platform that. So it's a different approach starting with so you can call it social media, so even though I just thought it wasn't. Call it whatever you, whatever you wanna call it, social storytelling and, um, and that's where it starts. And then we created from those shows, we repackaged every season. There's about 3 hours of content we make every year for Coconelon. Again 3 to 7 minutes each each show. Go on YouTube, we take those, we pull them together in 31 hour episodes, just the same stuff that's on YouTube, and we license it to it was the number one show on Netflix from 2021 to today of any show. Like I think the second biggest one is Grey's Anatomy. That's how big Cocomelon is. And if you're a streamer, we talked about the three things that make streaming work. The biggest one is churn reduction, making sure few people disconnect as possible, and the biggest determinant of that is how engaged they are, how much content they're watching. Cocamelon is watched over and over and over. I mean, I kid you know exactly what I'm talking the engagement is through the roof, so it really is helpful for a streaming platform, and we're moving that over, um, some of our main Cocoelon content from, um, from Netflix in 2027 to Disney Plus. Uh, I think that'd be a nice home for it. There's some, there's a couple originals that of Coconelon that stay on Netflix, and we like to we like to properties as distributed as healthy as we possibly can. We don't wanna be overdependent on one platform, so I think that moving them around makes some sense. It's very powerful. um, the, the audience for Cocaelon is extremely large, so you, of course, if you have that sort of audience, you have consumer products, licensing capabilities, you have music, music, you gotta tell you about music. So if you look at all Coconelons, mostly music, if you look at Cocaelon last year and the number of music streams that were listened including the video that has the music in it, there are more Cocomelon streams, or I think all of Moonbug, frankly, across all of our properties than Taylor Swift. Wow, last year. That's how popular, we have a big music business. We have a big games business we're building right now. Um, we're getting into publishing. We have a movie that's been rumored to come out in a couple of years, which hasn't been announced, so anyway you wanna announce it? You can, notreally. You can announce if you want. I mean, do you, are you?Is that you're gonna continue to lean in the children's content? Do you have another coco me? That's a great question. So if you look at that, that is really social media storytelling or, you know, that, that type of storytelling, taking it multi-platform. We've done it for kids and we're truly, I think the biggest operator in that space now and we're highly profitable and growing. It's a great could imagine doing the same thing in other verticals, other vertical audiences. Now we haven't really done that. We've stayed in kids for the most part, but at some point you might say, hey, little older kids, teens, see those trick shot guys? I'm, I forgot the, I, I just talked to the guys do perfect. They just, uh, moved into a new oh those guys were crushing it. I mean, that is, they're in Texas, Ithink. They just moved to a big uh big new place. I mean, they put out a ton of content. Well my kids were in their teens and I, you know, a little older, but when they were a little younger, they watched that constantly, constantly. And by the way, YouTube is the big winner here in terms of engagement with younger audiences, it's YouTube. Uh, Kevin, good to see you, man. I appreciate you doing this. Uh, I continue to follow your journey, pretty cool to even be here, man. It's good to see you. Glad to see youdo so well. All right, I appreciate that. Very, very kind, uh, Kevin Mayer, uh, Candle Media CEO. Talk to you soon. Be sure to share this all over the place. You wanna share, share it with Coco Mellon fans, Kevin. Just get it to like the children out there. They need to learn about finance. All right, uh, that's it for the latest episode of Opening Bid. Hit us with all those likes on all the social media platforms on YouTube. You heard Kevin talking about, uh, Coco Mellon on YouTube. Uh, well, I, I'm not, uh, involved with Coco Mellon, but hit me with those thumbs up on YouTube anyway. Appreciate the love. Talk to you guys soon. Listen on your favorite podcast platform or watch on our website for full episodes of Opening Bid. Langston Sessoms produces Yahoo Finance's Opening Bid Error while retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error while retrieving data Error while retrieving data Error while retrieving data Error while retrieving data

Forbes

18 hours ago

• Forbes

How AI Is Rewriting Reality—And Why Media Literacy Is Our Best Defense

Dr. Lyric Mandell of MOXY Company is a media strategist and scholar merging credibility, creativity, and culture to shape communication. We live in a society where AI-generated images of presidents in papal robes or pop stars in pitiful props aren't just the brainchildren of bored internet users—they now circulate through official channels and have real-world consequences. The rise of AI-driven visuals from sources as superfluous as anonymous Reddit threads to as sacred as the White House shows how blurred the line between satire and statecraft is, and it's not just political theater. When military agencies experiment with deepfakes and public health campaigns feature AI-generated humans, it becomes clear: This is no longer just about technological novelty—it's a crisis of perception, authority and what we, as a society, agree to call 'real.' In his 2005 book discussing 'BS,' Harry Frankfurt reminds us that much of what circulates in public life is neither truth nor lie—it's language used without any regard for the truth. In the digital age, that indifference becomes content. And when this kind of insincerity becomes visually striking and algorithmically optimized, the danger isn't just that we misinterpret the message—it's that we stop caring whether the message is real. For communicators, this shift is seismic. We now operate in a landscape where audiences often don't care about who shares something—only how it makes them feel or how frequently it appears in their feed. And perhaps more unsettling is that much of this isn't malicious; it's rooted in media illiteracy. The erosion of traditional credibility markers—expertise, authorship and institutional trust—forces communicators to ask complex questions: How do we create messages that resonate in a reality where factual grounding is optional but ethical responsibility isn't? The stakes aren't just strategic—they're societal. Research suggests that false information spreads six times faster than truth and often appears professional enough to pass as fact, even influencing how governments, organizations and the public respond to events. As AI grows more adept at mimicking human behavior, our critical filters weaken. Although the technology is new, the terrain is familiar. As early as 1922, journalist Walter Lippmann theorized in Public Opinion that people respond not to actual events but to the 'pictures inside our heads'—mental shortcuts or 'stereotypes' that help us navigate chaos. In an age where media circulates in many-to-many networks, AI doesn't just reinforce those images; it manufactures them at scale. Media theorist Neil Postman calls this the entertainment-ization of public discourse. In Amusing Ourselves to Death, he argues that television renders 'serious' ideas digestible only when entertaining. AI-generated media becomes Postman's nightmare realized: politics as parody and medicine as memes. This overflow of information, although entertaining, also drains us. With people spending over two hours a day on social media, each swipe delivers another micro-dose of engagement—or irritation. This content overload leads to what scholars describe as 'information fatigue syndrome'—a cognitive condition marked by emotional burnout, decision paralysis and, most alarmingly, active avoidance of news and discourse. Research from Reuters suggests that people don't turn away from the news out of apathy—they retreat because the content feels repetitive, emotionally exhausting and beyond their power to influence. In an ecosystem where audiences can't—or won't—filter every post for truth or relevance, trust becomes optional and attention becomes reflexive. And AI accelerates this breakdown. When content never stops and everything feels true, our brains default to shortcuts. We adopt Lippmann's stereotypes—those 'pictures in our heads'—because interrogating every piece of media proves too exhausting. The antidote isn't withdrawal—it's critical literacy. In an 'apathy economy' where content circulates without conviction, modern communicators must create signals worthy of the scarce, fatigued attention users still possess—but at what cost? For communicators, this shift demands more than creative recalibration—it requires ethical clarity. In an environment where virality often outperforms veracity, the temptation rises: optimize for engagement, lean into outrage and co-opt the aesthetic of authenticity without accountability. But the real challenge isn't just how to get attention—it's how to deserve it. Credibility is no longer a given. If we want audiences to engage intentionally rather than impulsively, we must build trust actively—and often, uphill. This means resisting the allure of AI shortcuts that produce volume without value. It means recognizing that saturation breeds cynicism, and most importantly, it means creating content that contributes to literacy, not just visibility. Frankfurt warns that 'BS' is dangerous not because it's false but because it's indifferent. Postman warns that spectacle smothers substance, and Lippmann warns that our internal 'pictures' overpower facts. Today, all three thinkers converge at the intersection of AI and public discourse. The real danger we face isn't just misinformation—it's the erosion of consensus, not consensus as shared opinions but of shared processes: a collective understanding of how we evaluate and prioritize truth, source credibility and what constitutes reliable evidence. In a world where every post, video or AI-generated image circulates with the same weight—regardless of origin or intent—that consensus collapses. This collapse doesn't just disrupt public trust; it dismantles the conditions that make disagreement productive. Without a baseline agreement on how we determine what's real—and more importantly, why truth should still matter—we lose the ability to disagree meaningfully. We don't just fight over facts—we fight over whether facts exist at all. For communicators, this places a unique responsibility at our feet. We're not just competing in an attention economy but shaping a reality economy. Every message we craft doesn't just influence a market; it contributes to—or corrodes—the broader information environment. We must evaluate our impact not just within KPIs but across our social world. If we're all architects of attention, we're also stewards of its consequences—and that includes preserving a cultural commitment to truth itself. Forbes Communications Council is an invitation-only community for executives in successful public relations, media strategy, creative and advertising agencies. Do I qualify?