No monopolies. No subscriptions. No free work. Taar is a video-first news wire that breaks legacy wire monopolies that keep independent journalists, small newsrooms, and individual broadcasters out. It returns sight and voice to frontline journalists, freelancers, and small newsrooms.
To news consumers, news feed often feels the same no matter which channel or site they turn to. They simply choose the one that feels closest to their beliefs.
That’s because most outlets—big and small—draw from the same small group of wire services that supply their video and reporting. Small and independent newsrooms simply can’t be everywhere at once, so they’re stuck buying these feeds. If those feeds are biased, incomplete, or slanted, that slant gets passed on no matter how hard editors try to balance the framing.
Taar changes this. We open the frame by letting frontline journalists sell directly to newsrooms and broadcasters, without going through the monopolies. We break apart expensive bundles so outlets can choose the stories they actually want, and you get a richer, more diverse view of the world.
Mainly for frontline reporters, independent freelancers, small newsrooms, independent broadcasters, and any publisher or buyer who needs verified, human-made video footage without gatekeepers or high pricing.
But then again, Taar is distributed and decentralized and anyone can upload and everyone can buy.
No. Social media platforms make their money by keeping users scrolling, selling ads, and monetizing creators’ work—without paying them fairly, if at all.
Taar isn’t built for likes, followers, or algorithmic virality. It’s a professional news marketplace where verified journalists sell their footage directly to newsrooms and broadcasters. There’s no attention-trap design, and no corporate algorithm deciding what gets seen. Taar’s only job is to move verified, human-made news from the people who produce it to the people who need it—and to pay the creators immediately and fairly.
Because news shouldn’t have to compete with entertainment and pornography. A breaking video from a frontline journalist isn’t the same as a dance clip or a holiday snap—it can shape public understanding, hold power to account, or serve as evidence. Social media treats all content the same, optimized for engagement, not accuracy.
Taar treats news—and the person who put in the labor and took the risk to record it—with the respect it deserves.
We are by design open and inclusive. So we can't and won't dictate what you can report on. But help us by try and sticking to the thumb rule of "News is that which speaks truth to power and informs your fellow human beings. Everything else is PR and distraction.
Taar takes a very small percentage of the price at which every video is sold. Journalists receive immediate, fair compensation when they sell footage on Taar—no delayed invoices, no forced bundles, and no hidden middlemen taking undue cuts. And they keep getting it in perpetuity.
Not being evasive. We just haven't figured the math out yet. We'll likely cap the platform fee at a maximum of 10% at launch. But we’ll do it for less if we can manage. In fact, we may reduce the fee as we proceed and even move to a flat fee format if the infrastructure and human costs allow.
Taar never profits from free work. If a creator chooses free distribution, we take no cut. Labor given freely stays free.
Verification is non-negotiable. Every clip listed on Taar is subject to metadata and manipulation checks, watermarking, and provenance tracing so eyewitness video can be treated as reliable evidence.
Moreover, Taar doesn't claim copyright over journalists or newsrooms' work. In our later versions, we will encode immutable credit—but that needs protocol level changes and will take time to onboard other stakeholders.
The principal two things we check are
a) Geolocation — verify the claimed location.
b) Provenance — each app installation has a unique ID tied to the journalist’s or newsroom's account. No outside uploads—no duplication of users.
You can totally use VPNs. In fact we encourage you to use non-logging VPNs for privacy. But giving location permission when shooting is a must since we need to verify whether or not a video was shot where it's claimed to have been shot. Also note that app-server traffic is end-to-end encrypted. Even ISPs can’t see the videos.
Journalism isn’t a crime—so journalists shouldn’t have to hide. And in most cases, they don’t. We recognise that in countries where press freedom is collapsing, reporters must take precautions, and we respect that. But there’s a trade-off with verification here and we can’t compromise on the latter.
That doesn’t mean we track locations all the time. Turning on location is needed only when the app is being used to shoot videos.
Only humans. No bots or synthetic content in published footage. Computers assist verification; they don’t author stories.
Shoot — Secure recording/editing in the app; encrypted upload.
Verify — Automated tools + human review.
Showcase & Sell — Protected playback, flexible pricing, real-time payouts.
Share — Reporters may amplify verified work across their channels.
Because of verification again. We can’t perform the mandatory checks we do if any other cameras are used. And our system is closed to external uploads.
We do plan to integrate external cameras with the app. But technically that’s far easier said than done. Not a priority at the moment.
Yes. No bundles. No buy all subscriptions. Buy only the clips you need, when you need them.
With plurality. Taar doesn’t editorialize. You can be whatever wing of politics you like and use Taar. And there really is no tech solution to human bias. If we tried to implement censorship, we’d go down the slippery slope of the very corporations and governments we’re resisting.
We’re counting on plurality to counter bias. By decentralizing news gathering and news distribution; by allowing direct sales from reporters to buyers, Taar broadens who is heard. Small broadcasters and independent publishers can access frontline material, creating a marketplace of many truths rather than a megaphone for the few.
Creators control pricing & distribution; retain copyright. We don’t train AI on uploads. Taar earns only when creators sell—no incentive to claim copyright.
Reporters, editors, independent broadcasters, and citizens who reject monopolies. Anyone who wants human-made news paid to humans who report.
Yes. Journalists can set their newsroom as parent; payments go to the newsroom.
They can. It’s an open platform anyone can join. In fact we expect many large news companies to join as buyers as soon as Taar catches on. They already keep copying independent journalists’ work from social media and run with it without their permission. Taar stops that with DRM-controlled players and watermarked videos.
What nobody can do—big or small—is leverage Taar’s ecosystem to bully independent journalists and individuals. Taar is where the small guy has as much legitimacy as the big guy.
There’s no way we can or want to stop that from happening. We incentivise buying and selling by making taarnews.com a marketplace, integrating payment settlements, and making sure the payments happen in perpetuity. So independent journalists who just want to shoot, edit, and sell will find that going through Taar is just easier.
This is the first version that’s out. And no, this isn’t decentralized in the truest sense of the word. In fact we’re dependent on the centralized banking system to make payments which is a big problem.
The moment we hit a critical number of users and sales, we will start implementing a truly trustless and distributed system. We aren’t working with corporate funding so we can’t build everything all at once. Besides democracy and freedom are incremental in nature. The world of news isn't any different.
A system of information exchange that’s distributed and trustless like a blockchain. A system where all stakeholders get paid for participation while nobody controls the entire chain of information flow. Something that involves an IPFS based hosting system with non-fiat payment settlements. And we’re writing a whole new protocol of information exchange.
We’ll update the plans here when we get some distance in that. In fact, if you’re someone who can help us build the true distributed, trustless version, please get in touch and help.