TORONTO – HuffPost Canada’s editor-in-chief says the online news and opinion website has no plans to follow its U.S. counterpart’s lead and drop its unpaid blog platform.

Andree Lau says the Canadian operation’s approach to contributed material has always differed from its older and larger U.S. counterpart, where contributors self-published without any editorial review.

A memo issued Thursday by HuffPost’s top U.S. editor, Lydia Polgreen, says the American HuffPost is shutting down the unpaid blog platform and starting a curated opinion section that will pay the contributors that are selected.

Lau says HuffPost Canada and its French-language counterpart, on the other hand, have always had a team of editors who assess, edit and decide what will be published on a case-by-case basis — without payments to the contributors.

She adds HuffPost Canada is still committed to publishing compelling blogs and inviting contributors to make submissions for the same reasons people post on platforms like Facebook and Twitter.

Her American counterpart, however, said the proliferation of online platforms now threatens to undermine democracy through a flood of false information.

“One of the biggest challenges we all face, in an era where everyone has a platform, is figuring out whom to listen to,” Polgreen wrote on her HuffPost blog.

“Our hope is that by listening carefully through all the noise, we can find the voices that need to be heard and elevate them for all of you.