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Microsoft has partnered with a shoddy Neocon-backed "fact
checker" called NewsGuard which rates websites' "credibility"
in-browser and NewsGuard's CEO says their goal is to have their software on
all smartphones and computers by default.
From MintPressNews:
How a NeoCon-Backed “Fact Checker” Plans to Wage War on
Independent Media
As Newsguard’s project advances, it will soon become almost impossible to
avoid this neocon-approved news site’s ranking systems on any technological
device sold in the United States.
by Whitney Webb
January 09th, 2019
Soon after the social media “purge” of independent media sites and pages this
past October, a top neoconservative insider — Jamie Fly — was caught stating
that the mass deletion of anti-establishment and anti-war pages on Facebook
and Twitter was “just the beginning” of a concerted effort by the U.S.
government and powerful corporations to silence online dissent within the
United States and beyond.
While a few, relatively uneventful months in the online news sphere have come
and gone since Fly made this ominous warning, it appears that the
neoconservatives and other standard bearers of the military-industrial
complex and the U.S. oligarchy are now poised to let loose their latest
digital offensive against independent media outlets that seek to expose wrongdoing
in both the private and public sectors.
As MintPress News Editor-in-Chief Mnar Muhawesh recently
wrote, MintPress was informed that it was under review by an organization
called Newsguard Technologies, which described itself to MintPress as simply
a “news rating agency” and asked Muhawesh to comment on a series of
allegations, several of which were blatantly untrue. However, further examination
of this organization reveals that it is funded by and deeply connected to the
U.S. government, neo-conservatives, and powerful monied interests, all of
whom have been working overtime since the 2016 election to silence dissent to
American forever-wars and corporate-led oligarchy.
More troubling still, Newsguard — by virtue of its deep
connections to government and Silicon Valley — is lobbying to have its
rankings of news sites installed by default on computers in U.S. public
libraries, schools, and universities as well as on all smartphones and
computers sold in the United States.
In other words, as Newsguard’s project advances, it will soon become almost
impossible to avoid this neocon-approved news site’s ranking systems on any
technological device sold in the United States. Worse still, if its efforts
to quash dissenting voices in the U.S. are successful, Newsguard promises
that its next move will be to take its system global.
Red light, green light . . .
Newsguard has received considerable attention in the mainstream media of
late, having been the subject of a slew of articles in the Washington Post,
the Hill, the Boston Globe, Politico, Bloomberg, Wired, and many others just
over the past few months. Those articles portray Newsguard as using
“old-school journalism” to fight “fake news” through its reliance on nine
criteria allegedly intended to separate the wheat from the chaff when it
comes to online news.
Newsguard separates sites it deems worthy and sites it considers unreliable
by using a color-coded rating — green, yellow, or red — and more detailed
“nutrition labels” regarding a site’s credibility or lack thereof. Rankings
are created by Newsguard’s team of “trained analysts.” The color-coding
system may remind some readers of the color-coded terror threat-level warning
system that was created after 9/11, making it worth noting that Tom Ridge,
the former secretary of Homeland Security who oversaw the implementation of
that system under George W. Bush, is on Newsguard’s advisory board.
As Newsguard releases a new rating of a site, that rating
automatically spreads to all computers that have installed its news ranking
browser plug-in. That plug-in is currently available for free for the most
commonly used internet browsers. NewsGuard directly markets the browser
plug-in to libraries, schools and internet users in general.
According to its website, Newsguard has rated more than 2,000 news and
information sites. However, it plans to take its ranking efforts much farther
by eventually
reviewing “the 7,500 most-read news and information websites in the
U.S.—about 98 percent of news and information people read and share online”
in the United States in English.
[...]
According to local media, Newsguard “now works with library systems
representing public libraries across the country, and is also partnering with
middle schools, high schools, universities, and educational organizations to
support their news literacy efforts,” suggesting that these Newsguard
services targeting libraries and schools are soon to become a compulsory
component of the American library and education system, despite Newsguard’s
glaring conflicts of interest with massive multinational corporations and
powerful government power-brokers.
Notably, Newsguard has a powerful partner that has allowed it to start
finding its way into public library and school computers throughout the
country. As part of its new “Defending Democracy” initiative, Microsoft
announced last August that it would be partnering with Newsguard to actively
market the company’s ranking app and other services to libraries and schools
throughout the country. Microsoft’s press release regarding the partnership
states that Newsguard “will empower voters by providing them with
high-quality information about the integrity and transparency of online news
sites.”
Since then, Microsoft has now added the Newsguard app as a built-in feature
of Microsoft Edge, its browser for iOS and Android mobile devices, and is
unlikely to stop there. Indeed, as a recent report in favor of Microsoft’s
partnership with Newsguard noted, “we could hope that this new partnership
will allow Microsoft to add NewsGuard to Edge on Windows 10 [operating system
for computers] as well.”
Newsguard, for its part, seems confident that its app will soon be added by
default to all mobile devices. On its website, the organization notes that
“NewsGuard will be available on mobile devices when the digital platforms
such as social media sites and search engines or mobile operating systems add
our ratings and Nutrition Labels directly.” This shows that Newsguard isn’t
expecting its rating systems to be offered as a downloadable application for
mobile devices but something that social media sites like Facebook, search
engines like Google, and mobile device operating systems that are dominated
by Apple and Google will “directly” integrate into nearly every smartphone
and tablet sold in the United States.
A Boston Globe article on Newsguard from this past October makes this plan
even more clear. The Globe wrote at the time:
Microsoft has already agreed to make NewsGuard a built-in
feature in future products, and [Newsguard co-CEO] Brill said he’s in talks
with other online titans. The goal is to have NewsGuard running by default on
our computers and phones whenever we scan the Web for news.”
This eventuality is made all the more likely given the fact
that, in addition to Microsoft, Newsguard is also closely connected to
Google, as Google has been a partner of the Publicis Groupe since 2014, when
the two massive companies joined Condé Nast to create a new marketing service
called La Maison that is “focused on producing engaging content for marketers
in the luxury space.” Given Google’s power in the digital sphere as the
dominant search engine, the creator of the Android mobile operating system,
and the owner of YouTube, its partnership with Publicis means that
Newsguard’s rating system will soon see itself being promoted by yet another
of Silicon Valley’s most powerful companies.
Furthermore, there is an effort underway to integrate Newsguard into social
media sites like Facebook and Twitter. Indeed, as Newsguard was launched,
co-CEO Brill stated that he planned to sell the company’s ratings of news
sites to Facebook and Twitter. Last March, Brill told CNN that “We’re asking them
[Facebook, Twitter, Microsoft and Google] to pay a fraction of what they pay
their P.R. people and their lobbyists to talk about the problem.”
[...]
Notably, Newsguard has a powerful partner that has allowed it to start
finding its way into public library and school computers throughout the
country. As part of its new "Defending Democracy" initiative,
Microsoft announced last August that it would be partnering with Newsguard to
actively market the company's ranking app and other services to libraries and
schools throughout the country. Microsoft's press
release regarding the partnership states that Newsguard "will empower
voters by providing them with high-quality information about the integrity
and transparency of online news sites."
Since then, Microsoft has now
added the Newsguard app as a built-in feature of Microsoft Edge, its
browser for iOS and Android mobile devices, and is unlikely to stop there.
Indeed, as a recent
report in favor of Microsoft's partnership with Newsguard noted, "we
could hope that this new partnership will allow Microsoft to add NewsGuard to
Edge on Windows 10 [operating system for computers] as well."
Newsguard, for its part, seems confident that its app will soon be added by
default to all mobile devices. On its website, the organization notes that "NewsGuard will be
available on mobile devices when the digital platforms such as social media
sites and search engines or mobile operating systems add our ratings and
Nutrition Labels directly." This shows that Newsguard isn't expecting
its rating systems to be offered as a downloadable application for mobile
devices but something that social media sites like Facebook, search engines
like Google, and mobile device operating systems that are dominated by Apple
and Google will "directly" integrate into nearly every smartphone
and tablet sold in the United States.
A Boston Globe article on Newsguard from this past October makes this
plan even more clear. The Globe wrote
at the time:
Microsoft has already agreed to make NewsGuard a built-in feature
in future products, and [Newsguard co-CEO] Brill said he's in talks with
other online titans. The goal is to have NewsGuard running by default on our
computers and phones whenever we scan the Web for news."
This eventuality is made all the more likely given the fact
that, in addition to Microsoft, Newsguard is also closely connected to
Google, as Google has been a partner of the Publicis Groupe since
2014, when the two massive companies joined Conde Nast to create a new
marketing service called La Maison that is "focused on producing
engaging content for marketers in the luxury space." Given Google's power
in the digital sphere as the dominant search engine, the creator of the
Android mobile operating system, and the owner of YouTube, its partnership
with Publicis means that Newsguard's rating system will soon see itself being
promoted by yet another of Silicon Valley's most powerful companies.
Furthermore, there is an effort underway to integrate Newsguard into social
media sites like Facebook and Twitter. Indeed, as Newsguard was launched,
co-CEO Brill stated that he planned
to sell the company's ratings of news sites to Facebook and Twitter. Last
March, Brill told CNN that "We're asking them [Facebook, Twitter,
Microsoft and Google] to pay a fraction of what they pay their P.R. people
and their lobbyists to talk about the problem."
[...]
Financial censorship
Another Newsguard service shows that this organization is also seeking to
harm independent media financially by targeting online revenue. Through a
service called “Brandguard,” which it describes as a “brand safety tool aimed
at helping advertisers keep their brands off of unreliable news and
information sites while giving them the assurance they need to support
thousands of Green-rated [i.e., Newsguard-approved] news and information
sites, big and small.”
At the time the service was announced last November, Newsguard co-CEO Brill
stated that the company was “in discussions with the ad tech firms, leading
agencies, and major advertisers” eager to adopt a blacklist of news sites
deemed “unreliable” by Newsguard. This is unsurprising given the leading role
of the Publicis Groupe, one of the world’s largest advertising and PR firms,
has in funding Newsguard. As a consequence, it seems likely that many, if not
all, of Publicis’ client companies will choose to adopt this blacklist to
help crush many of the news sites that are unafraid to hold them accountable.
It is also important to note here that Google’s connection to Publicis and
thus Newsguard could spell trouble for independent news pages that rely on
Google Adsense for some or all of their ad-based revenue. Google Adsense has
long been targeting sites like MintPress by demonetizing articles for
information or photographs it deemed controversial, including demonetizing
one article for including a photo showing U.S. soldiers involved in
torturing Iraqi detainees at the infamous Abu Ghraib prison.
Since then, Google — a U.S. military contractor — has repeatedly tried to
shutter ad access to MintPress articles that involve reporting that is
critical of U.S. empire and military expansion. One
article that has been repeatedly flagged by Google details how many
African-Americans have questioned whether the Women’s March has aided or
harmed the advancement of African-Americans in the United States. Google has
repeatedly claimed that the article, which was written by African-American
author and former Washington Post bureau chief Jon Jeter, contains “dangerous
content.”
Given Google’s already established practice of targeting factual reporting it
deemed controversial through Adsense, Brandguard will likely offer the tech
giant just the excuse it needs to cut off sites like MintPress, and other
pages equally critical of empire, altogether.
Read their full
report.
This has been a dream of the establishment for over a decade.
One of these NewsGuard "journalists" contacted yours truly with a
review of Information Liberation that was so shoddy I didn't even bother to
respond as almost everything he said was wrong and his reading comprehension
was terrible.
I figured it's a waste of time to respond as I would be doing the reporter's
job for him by correcting him and I would only be improving his shoddy work.
It's blatantly obvious their goal is not to create an honest assessment of
any of our websites but instead to compile whatever slander they can throw
together to suit their pre-ordained narrative.
JihadWatch's Robert Spencer has also written an excellent article exposing
NewsGuard titled, "Steven
Brill’s NewsGuard and the 'fact-checking' scam."
Just look at the guys behind this:
Brill is on the right:
Would you trust those men to walk your dog?
The reason no one ever bothered implementing any scheme like this is because
it's so obviously a fraud and an affront to people's intelligence that it is
more likely to have the opposite effect -- negative rated sites are going to
be viewed as more credible as evidenced by the fact they're being slandered
by these establishment hacks.
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