Why NewsGuard Is Just As Bad As The Pro-Censorship Global Disinformation Index

Since the “Twitter Files” NewsGuard was named in congressional hearings as a participant within the Censorship Complex. However, the media-ratings company insists that it is different from the Global Disinformation Index. It has been blacklisted by disreputable organizations for its use of conservative news outlets. They are not only similar, but they are also very different.

Just an hour before independent journalists Matt Taibbi, Michael Shellenberger and Michael Shellenberger gave evidence before the House Subcommittee on the Warization of the Federal Government, Taibbi published the latest installment of the “The Lasting” series.Twitter Files.” “Some NGOs, like the GEC-funded Global Disinformation Index or the DOD-funded NewsGuard, not only see content moderation but apply subjective ‘risk’ or ‘reliability’ scores to media outlets, which can result in a reduction in revenue,” He wrote it, to emphasize the point in his Testimony from the Congress.

Shellenberger reaffirmed Taibbi’s comments and testified: “Both the Global Disinformation Index and NewsGuard are U.S. government-funded entities who are working to drive advertisers’ revenue away from disfavored publications and towards the ones they favor. This is totally inappropriate.”

NewsGuard had emailed Taibbi on Friday morning to dispute this report “government-funded” label. But as I Details Monday, NewsGuard received a $750,000 grant from the Department of Defense — which it now disputes as a “licensing fee” — to develop a “Misinformation Fingerprint” Programm that makes use of AI and “social listening tools” To target so-called “disinformation.” This is in addition its blacklisting certain media outlets via assigning “risk” Oder “reliability” scores. 

NewsGuard’s coCEOs said to The Federalist that they were not “sensitive to the distinction” Between their organization and the Global Disinformation Index, and that the federal grant was awarded. “had nothing to do with the government wanting us to rate websites,” Both organizations have the same scandalous results.

Similar Results

It is a scandalous matter that the federal government funded the Global Disinformation Index. It also lacks transparency, and uses its left-wing political biases to give unprofessional ratings and reviews targeting conservative media. NewsGuard does not believe it can be independent from the Global Disinformation Index just by calling its news sources ratings. “transparent” And “apolitical” And claiming to be operational “in a totally different manner.” 

NewsGuard’s Co-CEOs Steven Brill (and Gordon Crovitz) have been open to questions. However, some of their responses give cause for concern. Brill answered questions such as “How many articles NewsGuard selects to be reviewed” and “How it selects them”. “it depends on the site and its volume of content and the topics and substance of the content,” admitting “not everyone agrees with how we do this.” Then he resorted to praising the company’s supposed transparency. Pointing Listen to his discussion with the founder of Daily Kos regarding NewsGuard’s methodology. It is publicly available on its webpage.

NewsGuard’s transparency is lacking in areas that really matter. The organization’s “it depends” Its attitude and how it selects, reviews, and reviews materials leaves a lot of room to mischief. Subjectivity is the standard for evaluating. “the site” Content volume, topic, and substance. My request for the list containing articles that were reviewed by The Washington Post and The Federalist in 2020, 2021 and 2022 was not answered. This made it difficult to assess the process independently.

Even though NewsGuard repeatedly claims to be apolitical — a claim that’s Contradicted By its Histories This is Rating news outlets — so what? NewsGuard’s ratings cause true and important speech to be muted, while false reporting is magnified thanks to the organization’s greenlight.

For example, The New York Times and The Washington Post both received 100 percent ratings from NewsGuard, yet both botched reporting on the Russia-collusion hoax, the Hunter Biden laptop story, and many details surrounding Covid — and those are merely the “big” Stories and simple examples.

The Federalist was the opposite. It received one of NewsGuard’s lowest ratings for allegedly “repeatedly publish[ing] false or misleading information in significant news and opinion stories,” The Federalist out-reported the elite, legacy media outlets that accurately described these stories, and many other. The Federalist broke important stories that were not covered by other outlets.

What Do We Not Know?

NewsGuard claims it doesn’t silence speech Claim It is a simple approach. “American”: “Allow free speech but arm readers with the information they might want about who’s feeding them the news and what their standards are.” Many people use the warning labels as figurative earplugs and blinders. They never visit websites with red alerts. NewsGuard’s warnings prevent other speech from being heard.

We don’t even know about other potential censorship initiatives. Did NewsGuard’s data provide the basis for any censorship requests that the government sent to Twitter and other tech companies, or was it? What is the DOD going to do about the NewsGuard program that was created to aid the government in identifying presumed terrorists? “disinformation”?

The past few years have seen the following: “disinformation” Business is a rapidly growing industry. The DOD, the State Department and all the alphabet-soup federal agencies are training an army of future government contractors to provide the means to censor Americans. 

There are also nonprofits and academic institutions. Did they use NewsGuard data to flag material for Twitter, or not? Are any Big Tech companies using NewsGuard’s data to determine who is the best? “shadowbanning”? What about search engine? What about search engines? Do they use NewsGuard data to rank results?

A threat to speech

Contrary to NewsGuard’s assertion Claim It doesn’t “stop anything from being published and [doesn’t] want to,” it provides the tools to allow both government and non-governmental actors to regulate — and ban — content. This is how it works. “private company” The defense is not in the retort.

“Free speech” is not an important principle because it is constitutionally protected; it is constitutionally protected because it is an important principle — a first principle.

Corporations, non-profits, and academia impose restrictions on speech that can cause the same social harms as government censorship. Big Tech, like the early 20th century company towns, controlled the streets, parks and public squares and today can control the communication channels and silence speech on a scale far greater than any statute passed in Congress.

Big Tech is also in bed with Big Brother. They are joined daily at large by a growing list of think tanks, academic institutions, media outlets, and other organizations. This Censorship Complex together dictates the truth Americans can learn and denies any other information as misinformation, disinformation or mal-information. 

NewsGuard provides the means to do this, meaning at its core, it is no different than the Global Disinformation Index — except it turns a profit for its efforts.

Margot Cleveland is The Federalist’s senior legal correspondent. She contributes to National Review Online, Washington Examiner, Aleteia, Townhall.com and has been published by USA Today and Wall Street Journal. Cleveland is a lawyer and a graduate of the Notre Dame Law School, where she earned the Hoynes Prize—the law school’s highest honor. After graduating from Notre Dame Law School, Cleveland served nearly 25 years as a law clerk to a federal appellate judge at the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Cleveland was a former full time university faculty member. She now teaches adjunctively from time to time. Cleveland is a stay at home mom to a son with cystic Fibrosis and writes frequently about cultural issues. Cleveland can be found on Twitter at @ProfMJCleveland Cleveland’s private views are expressed here.