New York Times Amplifies Misinformation Group’s Talking Points To Smear Truth Social As QAnon Haven

Tristan JusticeAugust 29, 2022

The New York Times amplified the influence of a few dozen identified “QAnon” users active on former President Donald Trump’s social media platform on Monday after they were purged from establishment forums run by Big Tech.

Truth Social, the Times claims, is problematic for its commitment to foster open dialogue in contrast to websites like Twitter and Facebook, which are hellbent on dictating the narrative through overt censorship. At the core of its analysis, the paper relied on data from the ideologically driven, pro-censorship browser extension NewsGuard to form the basis of its hit piece.

“NewsGuard, a media watchdog that analyzes the credibility of news outlets, found 88 users promoting the QAnon conspiracy theory on Truth Social, each to more than 10,000 followers,” the Times wrote in the second paragraph. “Of those accounts, 32 were previously banned by Twitter.”

Heaven forbid users banned from Twitter, including the former president himself, build and use an alternative platform.

Meanwhile, NewsGuard continues to score legacy outlets that dismissed the Hunter Biden laptop story (which was also prohibited on Twitter) as disinformation with perfect credibility, while it gives outlets such as the New York Post and The Federalist dismal grades.

Extremists, of course, permeate virtually every corner of the internet, including Twitter and Facebook, which each fostered the same so-called extremist chatter that Silicon Valley giants used as justification for banning Parler, an early free speech alternative to Twitter. Parler still exists, but it is no longer accessible on app stores from either Apple or Google. The company was also down for weeks after it was kicked from Amazon Web Services.

The Times piece on Monday comes straight from the Parler playbook, wherein Big Tech-aligned media censors complain that competitors harbor dangerous content in order to justify their destruction, just in time for midterms. The paper’s partnership with NewGuard seeks to accomplish exactly that, even complaining that Truth Social did not respond to NewsGuard’s report highlighting 88 extremists on a platform of more than half a million users.

“Truth Social did not respond to questions about NewsGuard’s findings,” the Times wrote. “Instead, in a statement sent through a representative, the social media platform said that it had ‘reopened the internet and given the American people their voice back.’”

Below is the full statement Truth Social sent to the Times, which it then shared with The Federalist:

Lacking any sense of humor, irony, or basic common sense, and having zealously promoted the Russia collusion hoax, the Russian bounties hoax, and countless other ludicrous fabrications, the New York Times is the last media company on Earth that should be accusing anyone else of spreading conspiracy theories — by contrast, Truth Social has reopened the Internet and given the American people their voice back. If the Times has any dignity left, it should return its Pulitzers and apologize for their continued slander and defamation of Truth Social.

NewsGuard’s board of advisers includes former CIA Director Michael Hayden, who earlier this month called Republicans the most “dangerous” political force ever to face the country. NewsGuard’s censorship browser is also being employed in schools to indoctrinate students about which news sources are acceptable, despite the misinformation group’s own track record of amplifying misinformation.

Tristan Justice is the western correspondent for The Federalist. He has also written for The Washington Examiner and The Daily Signal. His work has also been featured in Real Clear Politics and Fox News. Tristan graduated from George Washington University where he majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow him on Twitter at @JusticeTristan or contact him at [email protected].