Editorial Policy

Last updated: May 24, 2026

BitsFromBytes publishes independent technology journalism for English-speaking readers in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia. This page documents the editorial standards that govern every article we publish, the safeguards we apply to keep our reporting accurate and useful, and the principles that separate our work from the sponsored content and AI-generated noise that now dominates much of the technology web.

If something on the site falls short of these standards, we want to hear about it. See our Corrections page for how to report an error.

Our mission

BitsFromBytes covers the consumer and prosumer technology categories where readers actually spend money and time: cybersecurity tools, hosting and infrastructure, artificial intelligence, productivity software, smart home gear, computing hardware, gadgets, gaming, green tech, 3D printing, maker projects, streaming services, troubleshooting, and tech news. We were founded in 2013, went dormant between 2020 and early 2026, and relaunched in April 2026 under new editorial leadership with a mandate to build a publication that holds up against the best independent technology outlets — TechRadar, Wired, The Verge, Ars Technica, Tom’s Hardware, HowToGeek.

Our editorial premise is simple. Readers deserve writing that names the trade-off the marketing left out, cites the specific source for every claim, and admits when something doesn’t work. We don’t publish guides that read like everyone else’s guides. If we can’t add something a reader couldn’t get from the next ten pages on the same topic, we don’t publish.

Independence

BitsFromBytes is privately owned. We accept advertising, affiliate commissions, and sponsorship revenue, all of which are detailed on our Advertise page. None of these commercial relationships influence editorial decisions. The editorial team operates separately from the advertising and partnerships function, and we do not allow advertisers to review, edit, or influence article content prior to publication.

When an article links to a product through an affiliate program, we disclose this clearly within the article. When we accept a guest contribution or sponsored content, we label it as such and apply the labelling consistently across the article, the metadata, and the social card. We never quietly inject a sponsor’s product into an editorial roundup, and we never accept payment in exchange for a favorable verdict.

If a brand offers to send us a product for review, we accept it under the condition that we retain editorial control over the resulting coverage and that the brand has no review rights over the article before it publishes. We disclose review units in the article. Products we paid for ourselves are noted as such.

How we work

Every article on BitsFromBytes is assigned to a single bylined author from our editorial team. Each author owns a specific category — for example, Nathan Brossard covers cybersecurity, Harper Ellis covers artificial intelligence, Holly Ashworth covers streaming and entertainment. Our complete author roster is on the About page, with credentials, off-site profiles, and the topics each author handles.

We do not publish under generic bylines like “BitsFromBytes Staff” or “Editorial Team,” with one specific exception: statistics roundups and industry reports are published under the brand byline BitsFromBytes Research, an in-house research function that exists separately from individual author entities because data compilation work is institutional rather than personal. Every other article is signed by a named, identifiable person whose expertise can be cross-referenced against external profiles.

We use AI tools in our research workflow — for transcript cleaning, source aggregation, draft outlining, fact-pattern surfacing. We do not publish AI-generated text as editorial content. Every published article is written and reviewed by the bylined author, who is accountable for its accuracy, its conclusions, and any errors it contains. When AI played a notable role in producing a specific output (a data visualization, for example), we say so.

Sources

We cite primary sources whenever they exist. For statistical claims we link to the issuing organization — the FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center, the Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report, IBM’s Cost of a Data Breach study, the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the International Energy Agency, the FTC Consumer Sentinel Network, NIST publications, peer-reviewed journals — rather than to other publications that have already cited those sources.

For product specifications we link to manufacturer documentation. For regulatory claims we link to the actual regulation or filing. For news we link to the original announcement, statement, or filing, not to coverage of it. When we cite another news outlet, we choose tier-one sources (Reuters, AP, BBC, NYT, WSJ, Bloomberg, FT, The Guardian) and we attribute clearly.

We do not cite Wikipedia as a factual source. We use Wikipedia to point readers to a well-known concept’s overview when that’s genuinely useful for orientation, but we never lift a claim from Wikipedia without going to the underlying source it cites. We do not cite anonymous forum posts, single-source Reddit threads, or other publications’ summaries of primary research as authoritative.

Methodology

For product reviews, comparison articles, and buying guides, we publish our testing methodology on the How We Test page and on each individual article when relevant. Methodology disclosure includes which products we tested, what we measured, the conditions under which we tested, the date range of the testing, and any limitations the reader should understand when interpreting our results.

We update methodology pages when our testing approach evolves. When a product’s specs or pricing have moved meaningfully since an article first published, we update the article, log the change at the top, and refresh the “Last reviewed” date. We do not adjust the date for cosmetic purposes — only when the article has been substantively re-read and edited.

Fact-checking

Every article passes through a pre-publication review by an editor who is not the author. Fact-check responsibilities include verifying every quantitative claim against its cited source, checking that linked sources still resolve to the document the article references, confirming that any quoted person or organization has been attributed correctly, and ensuring that the article’s verdicts and recommendations are supported by what the article actually demonstrates.

When an article makes a forward-looking claim — a prediction, a rumored product, a pre-release leak — we label it as such and identify the source of the claim. We do not present rumor as established fact. When sources contradict each other on a factual question, we say so and present the disagreement rather than picking a side without supporting evidence.

Corrections and complaints

We treat factual errors seriously. When we discover one — through internal review, reader feedback, or otherwise — we correct the article, log the change at the bottom of the piece with a brief description of what was wrong and what we changed, and update the “Last modified” date. For substantive errors we surface the correction in a visible note rather than silently editing.

If you’ve found an error, want to challenge a conclusion, or have a complaint about something we published, our Corrections page documents how to reach us and what to expect. We aim to respond to correction requests within five business days.

Editorial conflicts of interest

Members of our editorial team are required to disclose to the editor-in-chief any personal or financial relationship that could create a conflict with the topics they cover. Authors do not review products from companies they have a financial stake in, and they do not cover companies they have worked for in the past two years without disclosure within the article. We do not allow personal cryptocurrency or stock positions in companies that an author covers as part of their beat.

Comments and reader contributions

We do not currently operate an on-site comment system. We accept reader feedback by email at editorial [at] bitsfrombytes.com. Tip submissions, story leads, and corrections are welcome at the same address.

Contact

For editorial questions or to reach a specific author, use the contact details on each author’s profile page, accessible from the About page. For corrections, see Corrections. For commercial inquiries — sponsored content, banner advertising, guest contributions — see Advertise.