If you've used a news app in the last decade, you've used a feed that an engagement algorithm reordered for you. The algorithm picks which headlines reach the top of the page based on what kept other readers in the app. The reader is the input; the engagement metric is the output; the news is the byproduct. This page is the opposite proposal.
The premise
News is most useful to a reader when it is (a) accurate, (b) recent, and (c) ordered consistently with other readers' views of the same period. The algorithmic feed undermines all three: it injects optimization-target stories that test well in the model rather than informational ones, it deprioritizes recency in favor of "evergreen" engagement, and it splinters the shared view of the period because every reader sees a different ordering. WeSearch is news ordered the old way: by publish time, deduplicated, identical for everyone.
What "for people" means
- The same news for every reader. One chronological feed, one shared view. You and another reader two timezones over see the same headlines in the same order at the same hour. More.
- Anonymous discussion. The conversation under each story is not gated by follower counts, real names, or persistent public identity. Most threads stabilize on substance because there is no follower-count incentive for outrage. More.
- Sources you can audit. The source list is public. You can see exactly which 700+ feeds the home is built from and decide for yourself whether the mix is balanced. Browse.
- Standards you can hold us to. Editorial standards are written down. Read.
- Privacy you can verify. No third-party trackers in the request layer; verifiable in DevTools. More.
- Funding without strings. Donations from readers, no advertisers, no investors, no premium tier. More.
What "not algorithms" doesn't mean
We're not Luddites about machine learning. We use AI for two narrow purposes: a clearly-labeled 3–5 sentence TL;DR on each story page, and a clearly-labeled daily editorial note. Neither affects feed ordering. Neither personalizes. Both can be flagged and corrected. Used surgically, AI is a useful tool. Used to rerank the news, it is the problem.
The honest trade
You will, on a chronological feed, sometimes scroll past stories you don't care about. You will, occasionally, see headlines that other readers in your political tribe have decided to ignore. Your feed will not be optimized to keep you in the app. Those are the costs.
The benefit is that what you read is what is happening, in the order it happened, across many sources at once, without a third party deciding which version of "the news" you get. We think that trade made sense for fifty years of newspapers and we think it still does.
Who this is for
Readers who already have an opinion about the algorithmic feed and want to read without it. Readers who pay for several news subscriptions and are tired of the fragmentation. Readers who lurk on Reddit's news subreddits but feel the platform politics weighing on them. Readers who used Google Reader, miss it, and never quite trusted Feedly's premium drift. Readers who care enough about news to scroll past a few headlines they didn't care about in exchange for the assurance that nothing was hidden from them.