Many customers are drawn to social media platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube to remain updated on information.
Nonetheless, individuals are more and more complaining about misinformation and AI slop cluttering their feeds. Worries about belief have additionally grown, particularly in gentle of lawsuits towards Meta associated to harming younger folks and considerations over the possession of American TikTok. (Belief in conventional information shops has additionally eroded: a Pew Analysis examine from October discovered that simply 56% of U.S. adults say they’ve numerous or some belief in nationwide information media.)
Enter SaySo, a brand new short-form video app designed to ship curated information from vetted creators and impartial journalists. It launched for iOS users within the U.S. and Canada this month after a personal beta that started in November.
The app goals to set itself aside from different platforms by providing a extra intentional and customized information expertise that avoids countless scrolling.
Considered one of SaySo’s standout options is Day by day Digest. Upon making a profile, customers can select matters of curiosity akin to politics, social points, public well being, or crime, and the app curates a set of movies for them every day. This choice refreshes each 20 hours.
To discover a broader vary of matters, there may be an Discover web page the place customers can uncover further content material from completely different creators. SaySo additionally consists of typical options akin to the flexibility to comply with others, like, save, remark, and share.
Notably, SaySo requires creators to incorporate sources of data straight inside their movies, aiming to construct belief with customers. The app additionally combines human and AI moderation with supply validation to make sure content material integrity.
“Content material doesn’t auto-publish,” Dion Bailey, co-founder and CTO, explains to TechCrunch. “Every thing goes by way of a moderation queue, so most issues are caught earlier than they attain readers. If one thing slips by way of and will get flagged, we examine, deal with it straight with the creator, and take it down if it crosses the road.”
Moreover, SaySo is growing a “group notes” characteristic, permitting customers to take part within the accountability course of by way of a crowdsourced fact-checking method much like that of X and TikTok.
At its launch, SaySo onboarded roughly 30 creators. Amongst them is Nico Agosta, who first gained consideration together with his “Stocking the Capitol” video sequence, the place he dives into the monetary dealings of U.S. Congress members. There’s additionally Dr. Victoria, who focuses on matters associated to racial justice and social change, and Isabel Ravenna, an impartial journalist with bylines in shops like Nationwide Geographic.
On the query of creator pay, Ramin Beheshti, SaySo’s CEO and co-founder, says that “many [creators] have come on as founding companions and are receiving a stipend from day one. Over the approaching months, we’ll be constructing out the total monetization infrastructure, and when that income flows, the overwhelming majority goes on to creators.” He declined to offer specifics on the monetization infrastructure or what the income cut up will likely be.
Beheshti beforehand served as chief product and tech officer at Dow Jones.
SaySo is the flagship app of Caliber, previously often known as The Information Motion, which was based in 2022 and rebranded in 2025 to give attention to social, short-form journalism.
“We needed to construct a brand new breed of stories product that helped folks, slightly than add to the acquainted overwhelm so many people expertise,” says Beheshti. “Overlay that with what constructing Caliber has taught us about creators and the altering form of contemporary media, and we consider we’ve unlocked one thing very particular.”
Trying forward, the corporate plans to launch SaySo within the U.Ok. in the summertime, with additional enlargement into further markets all through this 12 months and 2027.
