Whatever you do, don't trust NewsGuard

A reader recommended I check out NewsGuard, 'The Internet Trust Tool.' Regardless of the verdict in Missouri v. Biden, The Censorship Industrial Complex isn’t going anywhere.

Steven Brill and the former publisher of The Wall Street Journal are trying to keep the world safe from the scourge of disinformation.

Everywhere you look - if you look - you find more examples of Orwellian censorship to battle the threats to “national security” and “democracy” caused by misinformation, disinformation and mal-information.

One of my regular readers, mckeekitty, provided another example by linking to the Substack newsletter NewsGuardrealtiycheck.com.

In a truth-seeking exercise of my own, I perused some of the posts and language of this company, which calls itself “The Internet Trust Tool.”

Sure enough, what we have here is another well-funded organization created to “protect” the world from yet another bogus threat. 

What follows are excerpts culled from NewGuard’s website. In an effort to highlight the glaring hypocrisy and the obvious bias and agendas of groups like NewsGuard, I added my own comments.

Of course, it should go without saying that the most brazen and serial producers of dangerous misinformation and disinformation are actually “trusted” government organizations, the government’s endless crony corporate “partners” including the captured mainstream media and organizations comprising the establishment’s Science and Medicine organizations.

The Basic Info: ‘About NewsGuard’ …

“Founded by media entrepreneur and award-winning journalist Steven Brill and former Wall Street Journal publisher Gordon Crovitz, NewsGuard provides transparent tools to counter misinformation for readers, brands, and democracies. Since launching in 2018, its global staff of trained journalists and information specialists has collected, updated, and deployed more than 6.9 million data points on more than 35,000 news and information sources, and cataloged and tracked all of the top false narratives spreading online."

Three Instant Red Flags …

I’ll start with three red flags which confirm this organization is simply another cog of a massive protection racket for those seeking to protect false narratives crucial to the Establishment Class.

From NewsGuard’s First Substack article published on Jan. 19, 2024, the following  text was highlighted in a box with the question, “DID YOU KNOW?”

“225,000 - Number of people who likely would not have died in the U.S. between January 2021 and April 2022 if the vaccine take-up rate had been 90 percent.”

• Source: From “The Death of Truth” by NewsGuard Co-CEO Steven Brill, to be published this Spring.

My comment: Mr. Brill, I did not “know” this … and nor do you or anyone else know this. 

The only way anyone could know this is if no vaccines had been administered and the world had a real “placebo” group, which would allow credible statisticians to compare subsequent deaths between the vaccinated and non-vaccinated.

Then again, we probably do know that the unvaccinated perished in smaller numbers than the vaccinated because there were just as many or more all-cause deaths after the vaccinations became widely administered in 2021 (the second year of the pandemic and after at least 70 percent of the population in most countries had received their shots). 

The closest thing to a non-vaccinated placebo group might be people who live in the continent of Africa, which had the lowest vaccine uptake and, by far, the smallest number of Covid deaths.

Also, how does NewsGuard define a “Covid death?” Could “misinformation” or “disinformation” possibly explain hundreds of thousands of deaths attributed to Covid that shouldn’t have been attributed to Covid?

Two more questions: Is it at least possible that some organizations profited by inflating the number of alleged Covid deaths to ramp up the Covid Fear Factor? That is, wouldn’t many organizations have a major financial incentive to inflate the number of “Covid deaths?”

Wouldn’t NewsGuard itself be out of business if it became widely understood that the contrarians who say Covid deaths are massively inflated are/were … absolutely right? That is, doesn’t NewsGuard have a strong incentive to prevent such knowledge from ever “going viral?”

Red Flag No. 2 - Tucker Carlson gets a big fat F

on his NewsGuard ‘Trust Score’ …

From this article, I learned Tucker Carlson is one of the most untrustworthy news sources - and, thus, one of the world’s most dangerous misinformation spreaders. (The article dealt with Tucker’s interview with Russian president Vladimir Putin.)

“WARNING: TuckerCarlson.com gets a 17.5/100 rating from NewsGuard, along with this warning: “Proceed with Maximum Caution: This website is unreliable because it severely violates basic journalistic standards.”

“(Read NewsGuard's Nutrition Label here.) Among Carlson’s earlier false claims: That the U.S. operates bioweapons labs in Ukraine, which is Kremlin disinformation to justify its invasion. The untrustworthy rating and warning for Carlson’s website thus “pre-bunks” whatever new falsehoods he promotes next.”

My Comment: FWIW, the U.S. did/does help operate and fund many bioweapons labs in Ukraine. NewGuard’s pre-bunking was bunk.

Also, speaking for myself, I’m going to continue to be highly skeptical of “Nutrition Labels” - be they produced by the American Heart Association, the CDC or the Cracker-Jack team of truth arbiters employed by NewsGuard.

This organization is basically saying do NOT trust any report produced by Tucker Carlson. I would simply note that hundreds of millions of news consumers have voted with their “views” and dollars and made Carlson their most-trusted source of news and commentary. Always siding with the elitists, NewsGuard is saying 100 million people are all wrong to trust Tucker.

I’ll go out on a limb and say far more people trust Tucker Carlson than trust NewsGuard. (I also want to know if Big Pharma is subsidizing NewsGuard. That “trusted” industry certainly isn’t sending any money to Tucker’s new show on X.)

The entire purpose of NewsGuard seems to be to “weaponize” coordinated financial attacks on journalists and journalistic organizations who challenge the authorized narratives. This, one presumes, is why companies sign up with NewsGuard to justify boycotting these sites.

(I’d also say any companies that boycott Tucker’s show should themselves be boycotted by consumers who value free speech.)

What’s the ‘Nutrition Label’ for gag-worthy pronouncements of the CDC, NIH, Fauci, etc.?

I did not see a numeric nutrition/truth score applied to the “most-trusted” sources of public information (agencies like the CDC and WHO). Here are 12 bogus claims (disinformation) that could easily be “scored” for veracity by honest fact-checkers:

Vaccines definitely prevent infection and spread.

Covid vaccines have never caused any deaths and are “safe” for everyone.

Masks definitely prevent virus spread and save lives.

The novel coronavirus is spread from physical surfaces, which need to be wiped down routinely.

Mass testing slows virus spread and people and organizations must get a swab pushed deep into their noses X times a week or month.

“Community spread” in America did not exist prior to late February 2020 (Source: CDC, May 29, 2020 press conference).

Everyone faces a great mortality risk from Covid, even healthy children and young adults.

Outside events should be cancelled. (No sunbathing at beaches allowed until further notice. And, you can’t visit your depressed and lonely grandmother in the nursing home).

Masks must be worn when walking into a restaurant but may be slipped below your mouth while eating appetizers or drinking a beverage.

This aerosolized virus doesn’t spread farther than six feet in grocery stores.

The tally (Truth: 0, Bogus Claims: 12) …

One assumes the CDC, NIH, NIAID, American Society of Pediatricians, WHO and President Joe Biden earned a Truth and Trust/Nutritional Score of 100 from NewsGuard (compared to Tucker’s “truth score” of 17.5).

Question:  Is it even hypothetically possible to debunk an authorized source of gospel information?

Item 3 - Climate Change is caused by

man’s dangerous activities

My readers will not be surprised to learn that the team of “professional” and trusted journalists employed by NewsGuard tell us that one of the world’s greatest “False Narratives” is the notion that “Human activity does not contribute to climate change.”

NewsGuard gives us … “The Facts”

“There is a broad scientific consensus …. That human activity is the greatest contributor to global warming, primarily through its emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses.”

NewsGuard cites three organizations (NOAA, the UN’s IPCC and NASA) for confirming these “facts.”

NewsGuard doesn’t tell us how much money these organizations have received from promoting the Climate Change Narrative … Nor does it tell readers what the existential threat really is or how this threat has manifested itself in the last three decades since said threat became “scientifically settled.”

For example, did America actually have more hurricanes this year than 30 years ago? Or more tornadoes? Has snowfall disappeared? Are the beach homes of many of NewsGuard’s financial backers now under water due to rising oceans?

The broader question: What if the “broad scientific consensus” turns out to be a big commode of scientific excrement?

Even if the “consensus” is right, when did it become science or journalism apostacy to question theories? When did asking questions or not agreeing with the plebiscites of bought-off organizations become such a great threat to “democracies” or “national defense?”

My answer: Apparently in the year 2018, which is the year NewsGuard was created.

Quick, miscellaneous parsing …

NewsGuard’s website includes too much misinformation to debunk in one article, but I’ll go fast to give readers a flavor of the claptrap I quickly found …

“Do you work in Trust and Safety for a technology company, in brand safety for advertising or otherwise counter misinformation as part of your job? Find out about NewsGuard’s weekly Risk Briefings, a more detailed briefing for professionals …”

Comment: Apparently numerous people now work in “Trust and Safety” divisions of tech companies. One can’t help but wonder how America became the greatest country on the planet without such employees.

One of NewsGuard’s clever marketing hooks is the company’s misinformation sleuths are able to identify “Misinformation Fingerprints,” which “can be used …”

“… By human analysts to understand mis- and disinformation risks, and track emerging narratives before they enter the mainstream.”

Comment: Note that everything is now a grave “risk.” I do appreciate Mr. Brill’s team being honest in admitting they don’t want information that challenges our corrupt rulers to ever … “enter the mainstream.” Trust me. We get this already. 

The partners in the Censorship Industrial Complex have already already done a fantastic job killing or injuring millions of people by keeping life-saving information from entering the mainstream.

“… To help government agencies and intelligence teams evaluate real-time disinformation narratives.”

Comment: Again, I appreciate this website being upfront and telling the public they are trying to help the government and their “intelligence teams.”

What makes NewsGuard’s Misinformation

Fingerprints different from fact-checking:

• “Fingerprints are each designated with a “risk of harm” level to contextualize the relative urgency or impact of each false claim.”

• Comment: The risk of harm is now understood and simply can’t be questioned. That is, I can’t say something like: “You know, that post didn’t harm me at all. In fact, I appreciate it.”

Also, we should all note the great “urgency” in identifying (ratting out) people and organizations who do question authority figures.

How can Misinformation Fingerprints be used?

“… As a warning system providing alerts of new false narratives being promoted by state propaganda operatives and other malign actors for security and defense experts.

Comment: Again, this is a private organization that’s eager to help the country’s “security and defense experts.” I’m now a Gold “bug,” a “science denier,” a “grandmother killer” and a “malign actor.” FWIW, malign is the worst type of cancer, our most-hated disease.

It’s also understood that the U.S. government is not involved in “state propaganda” and so, I guess, our own government doesn’t employ any “operatives” to advance its own propaganda. 

And, lastly ….

Data contained in each Fingerprint include:

• Detailed debunks citing trustworthy sources

This is all we really need to know: In our scary, scary world, we have “trustworthy sources” - which include every government agency (and every big organization that receives massive funding and benefits from the government) …  and then there are untrustworthy sources.

We can all rest easier knowing that NewsGuard is working 24-7, 365 days a year to protect citizens from these awful, horrifying untrustworthy sources.

This week the Supreme Court heard arguments of several plaintiffs who claim they were harmed by the government’s coordinated efforts to restrict their First Amendment rights to free speech.

At one time, some people thought this would be a slam-dunk 9-0 verdict where all nine justices would go out of their way to show their fealty to Constitution’s very first Amendment. However, after hearing oral arguments and some of the questions of the justices, this verdict might not be so clearcut after all.

This much-awaited decision is probably moot or irrelevant. Even if the Court rules for the plaintiffs, hundreds of groups like NewsGuard will still be working tirelessly to target people like me - America’s dangerous extremists who think our “trustworthy sources” should NEVER be trusted.

***

(My new goal is to average just two new paid subscribers for every article I post. This metric would ensure my Substack newsletter is financially sustainable. Thank you to any subscribers who may upgrade to paid. Ko-Fi gratuities are also always appreciated).