NewsGuard
 NewsGuard(Propaganda, Mass surveillance)     | |
|---|---|
 NewsGuard warns that RT is unreliable | |
| Founder | • Steven Brill • Gordon Kravitz |
| Interests | Fake news |
| Sponsored by | Publicis Groupe, US/Air Force |
| Membership | • Don Baer • John Battelle • Silvia Bencivelli • Yves Clarisse • Arne Duncan • Alina Fichter • Giampiero Gramaglia • Michael Hayden • Leo Hindery Jr • Elise Jordan • Jessica Lessin • Anders Fogh Rasmussen • Tom Ridge • Richard Sambrook • Richard Stengel • Brigitte Trafford • Ed Vaizey • Jimmy Wales |
| A tech company which is teaming up with Microsoft as regards "fake news" | |
NewsGuard is a company which purports to tackle "disinformation" through its browser extension.
Contents
Activities
“A new app claiming to serve as a bulwark against "disinformation" by adding "trust rankings" to news websites has links to a PR firm that received nearly $15 million to push pro-Saudi spin in US media, Breitbart reports. NewsGuard and its shady advisory board – consisting of truth-lovers such as Tom Ridge, the first-ever homeland security chief, and former CIA director Michael Hayden – came under scrutiny after Microsoft announced that the app would be built into its mobile browsers. A closer examination of the company's publicly listed investors, however, has revealed new reasons to be suspicious of this self-declared crusader against propaganda. As Breitbart discovered, NewsGuard's third-largest investor, Publicis Groupe, owns a PR firm that has repeatedly airbrushed Saudi Arabia.”
Anonymous (29 January 2019) [1]
Criticism
Breitbert notes that "WikiLeaks, which has never had to retract a story due to false or misleading information, is also given a “red” rating in contrast to the "green" which it gives to BuzzFeed, which was recently humiliated for publishing alleged details about the ongoing Mueller investigation that were contradicted by the spe[c]ial prosecutor himself. BuzzFeed did not retract the story, and even led with it on its frontpage … after Mueller contradicted it."[2]
Uncritical usage by Wikipedia
Whitney Webb described in 2019 How a Small Group of Pro-Israel Activists Blacklisted MintPress on Wikipedia. The article describes, among other things, how Wikipedia cited Mint Press News' unfavourable rating from Newsguard, "several months after MintPress authored a viral exposè of Newsguard’s connections to neoconservatives and former government officials, including former CIA director Michael Hayden."[3]
Tracking users
For each site someone with Newsguard installed visit, there will be a connection to "http://api.newsguardtech[.]com/check/[hostname of visited site]". The result will be cached locally for at most 30 minutes. The gathered information include the hostname of the site loaded in the current tab - i.e. more browsing history leakage.[4]
"NewsGuard" will get this information:
- The sites you visit
- When you visited these sites, +- 30 minutes, or with better accuracy if you open the extension's popup panel
- Your public IP address
- Your browser, OS, language (through HTTP headers)
Funding
NewsGuard was awarded a $749,387 contract by the US Air Force (September 7, 2021 – December 8, 2022) fir a "Misinformation Fingerprints" program aimed at combating "misinformation". NewsGuard also has disclosed that they received $25,000 from the US State Department and the US Cyber Command in 2020.[5][6]
People
NewsGuard's Advisory Board as of May 2020[7].
Known members
8 of the 18 of the members already have pages here:
| Member | Description |
|---|---|
| John Battelle | Helped launch Wired in the 1990s. Young Global Leaders. On the Advisory Board of the CIA-front NewsGuard |
| Arne Duncan | Educational bureaucrat; United States Secretary of Education under 7 years of Obama. |
| Michael Hayden | US Spook, NSA Director 1999-2005, CIA Director 2006-2009, News Guard advisory board |
| Anders Fogh Rasmussen | Bilderberger, ex Danish PM, ex-Secretary General of NATO. |
| Richard Sambrook | |
| Richard Stengel | Senio US Propagandist "Having once been almost a First Amendment absolutist, I have really moved my position on it, because I just think for practical reasons..." |
| Ed Vaizey | UK politician, Merton College Oxford, Henry Jackson Society, NewsGuard/Advisory Board, Notting Hill Set |
| Jimmy Wales | Founder of super-influential Wikipedia. Tony Blair aide's is (strategically?) married to him. |
Sponsors
| Event | Description |
|---|---|
| Publicis Groupe | French multinational advertising and public relations company |
| US/Air Force |
References
- ↑ https://www.rt.com/news/450035-saudi-arabia-newsguard-pr-investor/ RT
- ↑ https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2019/01/23/microsoft-teams-with-establishment-newsguard-to-create-news-blacklist/
- ↑ https://www.mintpressnews.com/pro-israel-activists-blacklist-mintpress-wikipedia/261022/
- ↑ https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1085980630863753217.html
- ↑ https://www.usaspending.gov/award/CONT_AWD_FA864921P1569_9700_-NONE-_-NONE-
- ↑ https://obektivno.bg/749387-pentagon-contract-debunks-the-lie-about-independent-fact-checkers/
- ↑ https://www.newsguardtech.com/our-advisory-board/
