NewsGuard

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Group.png NewsGuard
(Propaganda, Mass surveillanceTwitter WebsiteRdf-entity.pngRdf-icon.png
NewsGuard RT.png
NewsGuard warns that RT is unreliable
Founder•  Steven Brill
•  Gordon Kravitz
InterestsFake news
Sponsored byPublicis Groupe, US/Air Force
Membership•  Don Baer
• John Battelle.jpg John Battelle
•  Silvia Bencivelli
•  Yves Clarisse
•  Arne Duncan
•  Alina Fichter
•  Giampiero Gramaglia
•  Michael Hayden
•  Leo Hindery Jr
•  Elise Jordan
•  Jessica Lessin
• Portrait Anders Fogh Rasmussen.jpg Anders Fogh Rasmussen
• Tom Ridge.jpg Tom Ridge
•  Richard Sambrook
• Richard Stengel 2014.jpg Richard Stengel
•  Brigitte Trafford
• Ed Vaizey.jpg Ed Vaizey
• Wales Garvey.jpg 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.

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) for 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:

MemberDescription
John BattelleA Young Global Leader who helped launch Wired in the 1990s. On the Advisory Board of the CIA-front NewsGuard
Arne DuncanEducational bureaucrat; United States Secretary of Education under 7 years of Obama.
Michael HaydenUS Spook, NSA Director 1999-2005, CIA Director 2006-2009, News Guard advisory board
Anders Fogh RasmussenBilderberger, ex Danish PM, ex-Secretary General of NATO.
Richard SambrookUK media executive, Edelman's Global Vice Chairman and Chief Content Officer 2010-2012
Richard StengelSenio 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 VaizeyUK politician, Merton College Oxford, Henry Jackson Society, NewsGuard/Advisory Board, Notting Hill Set
Jimmy WalesFounder of super-influential Wikipedia. Tony Blair aide's is (strategically?) married to him.

 

Sponsors

EventDescription
Publicis GroupeFrench multinational advertising and public relations company
US/Air ForceThe national air force of the United States.
Many thanks to our Patrons who cover ~2/3 of our hosting bill. Please join them if you can.



References