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5/14/2020, “Microsoft Expands NewsGuard Adoption,” newsguardtech.com
“New Agreement Expands News Literacy Sponsorship, Provides All Users of Microsoft Edge Browser Free Access to NewsGuard’s Ratings and Nutrition Labels, and Delivers Data to Bing Search Engine.”
“NewsGuard Technologies, which uses trained journalists to review and rate the credibility of thousands of news and information websites and their associated social media accounts, today announced a significant expansion and extension of its partnership with Microsoft.
Under the agreement, Microsoft will continue to sponsor NewsGuard’s news literacy program—through which more than 700 libraries provide NewsGuard to their more than seven million patrons in the United States, Great Britain, France, Germany and Italy—and will expand the program into new countries, including Australia and Canada, which NewsGuard plans to serve later this year.
The agreement will also enable all users of Microsoft Edge’s desktop and mobile browser to access NewsGuard’s ratings for free, without paying the $2.95 monthly subscription fee that users of other browsers must pay. Microsoft has already integrated NewsGuard’s ratings into Microsoft Edge Mobile. In addition, Microsoft’s Bing search engine will now have access to a real-time feed of NewsGuard data.
Also, under the agreement, all other Microsoft departments are now able to use NewsGuard ratings and labels in their products and services. Projects already underway include the company’s Defending Democracy Program and teams within Microsoft Research who are working on misinformation, disinformation and health care hoaxes.
“We are delighted to be able to expand our relationship with Microsoft, which is a leader among companies in taking steps to address the unforeseen, unintended consequences of new technologies,” said NewsGuard co-CEO Gordon Crovitz. “The internet has empowered people around the world with unprecedented access to information, but the internet has also made it easier than ever for misinformation to spread, including health care hoaxes about COVID-19.”
“We’re grateful for the opportunity to work with Microsoft to arm its customers with NewsGuard ratings and Nutrition Labels to help them know the difference between generally reliable sources of news and information and generally unreliable sources,” added co-CEO Steven Brill. “With the exponential spread of unreliable healthcare hoaxes found online next to reliable sources, consumers need this information more than ever.”
“Access to tools like NewsGuard is critical in arming people with the information they need to evaluate the content they’re seeing online and help them make informed decisions,” said Tom Burt, Corporate Vice President of Customer Security and Trust, Microsoft. “Defending against disinformation campaigns is a key focus of our Defending Democracy Program. NewsGuard’s work has become especially relevant because of its trailblazing efforts to root out online hoaxes related to health and healthcare issues, including those concerning Covid-19. We’re proud of our role in making it available.”
NewsGuard also announced that Kate O’Sullivan, General Manager of Digital Diplomacy, Microsoft, has joined NewsGuard’s global advisory board. Its other members include Gen. Michael Hayden, former Director of the CIA and National Security Agency; Anders Fogh Rasmussen, former Prime Minister of Denmark and former Secretary General of NATO; Tom Ridge, [virulent pro-imperialist and] the first U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security; Arne Duncan, former U.S. Secretary of Education; and Ed Vaizey, former Member of British Parliament and former Minister of Culture and Digital.
About NewsGuard
Launched in March 2018 by media entrepreneur and award-winning journalist Steven Brill and former Wall Street Journal publisher Gordon Crovitz, NewsGuard provides credibility ratings and detailed “Nutrition Labels” for thousands of news and information websites that account for 95% of online engagement across the U.S., U.K., Germany, France, and Italy.
NewsGuard employs journalists to rate each site based on nine apolitical criteria of journalistic practice, including whether a site repeatedly publishes false content, whether it regularly corrects or clarifies errors, and whether it avoids deceptive headlines. Based on the criteria, each site receives a trust score of 0-100 and an overall rating of “Green,” indicating the site is generally reliable, or “Red,” indicating that it is not reliable.
NewsGuard’s ratings and Nutrition Labels can be licensed by education technology companies, internet service providers, browsers, news aggregators, and social media and search platforms. Consumers can access NewsGuard’s ratings through its browser extension, Android and iOS and the Microsoft Edge mobile browser.”
“Contacts: Steven Brill, Co-CEO, steven.brill@newsguardtech.com, +1 212 332 6301….Gordon Crovitz, Co-CEO, gordon.crovitz@newsguardtech.com, +1 212 332 6407″
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Added:
1/9/2019, “How a NeoCon-Backed “Fact Checker” Plans to Wage War on Independent Media,” Mint Press News, Whitney Webb
“Examination of this organization reveals that it is funded by and deeply connected to the U.S. government, neo-conservatives, and powerful monied interests, all of whom have been working overtime since the 2016 election to silence dissent to American forever-wars and corporate-led oligarchy….
Soon after the social media “purge” of independent media sites and pages this past October [2018], a top neoconservative insider— Jamie Fly — was caught stating that the mass deletion of anti-establishment and anti-war pages on Facebook and Twitter was “just the beginning” of a concerted effort by the U.S. government and powerful corporations to silence online dissent within the United States and beyond.”…
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Added:
1/9/2019, “A New Narrative Control Firm Works To Destroy Alternative Media,“ Caitlin Johnstone
“NewsGuard is led by some of the most virulently pro-imperialist individuals in America, and its agenda to shore up narrative control for the ruling power establishment is clear.”…
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Added: "NewsGuard...contacted us asking first what our relations with the Syrian state are, and then what we “think of this criticism”."
May 5, 2020, “The EU, NATO, NewsGuard and the Voltaire Network,” Voltaire, Thierry Meyssan
“The propaganda device aimed at stifling dissenting voices has taken a step forward. It is no longer simply a matter of accusing them of committing factual errors or deliberately lying, but of presenting them as traitors in the pay of a foreign power.
The European External Action Service created in 2015 the East StratCom Task Force, a unit tasked with combating disinformation from the Russian secret services. It runs a website, EUvsDisinfo.eu, and sends weekly e-mails to EU journalists to spread its good word. We have already reported that this unit is linked to the NATO Communication Centre in Riga [1]. *First, we are outraged to appear on an official site of the Union responsible for listing Russian disinformation – and this is not the first time. We have no connection with the Russian authorities, nor with those of any other country. This is pure defamation.
*Secondly, the EU’s rebuttal merely states that our work would be: “An exaggerated interpretation of a Newsweek article from Mid-March. Newsweek describes the role of the US military, should the political leadership be incapacitated“. However, we have quoted part of William Arkin’s article without distorting it and analysing his information in relation to others that are not more contested. It is the perspective of all this data that troubles the EU.
Until now, the public authorities had financed private initiatives to de-credit dissident sources. This is, for example, the function of the Decodex du Monde [5]. It is now a matter of going further and accusing them of treason.
To distinguish between true and false, exercise your critical mind!
NewsGuard, a New York-based company created to evaluate the reliability of websites and make a note on search engines, contacted us asking first what our relations with the Syrian state are, and then what we “think of this criticism”.
NewsGuard is very neutral. Its Board of Directors is secret, but its Advisory Board includes one of the co-founders of Wikipedia (Jimmy Wales) as well as the former director of the CIA and the NSA (General Michael Hayden), the former Secretary General of NATO (Anders Fogh Rasmussen), the former Secretary for Homeland Security (Tom Ridge) or the former Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy – i.e. Propaganda (Richard Stengel) [6].
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- On its French site, NewsGuard is careful not to give the names of the members of its Advisory Council, except one, Anders Fogh Rasmussen. Not hesitating to lie, [Newsguard’s French site] presents the former NATO Secretary General not as a senior official of the Atlantic Alliance, but of the United Nations.
- Under the European Treaties, NATO protects the EU. In other words, the European Union is only the civilian part of a whole in which NATO is the military part.
- After several attempts to kidnap or assassinate one of my staff and me in four different countries, we have every reason to believe that it is the Atlantic Alliance that has, on numerous occasions, saturated or even hacked into our website. Our opponents seem to be reverting to non-lethal means: lies and defamation.
*The first is to mix the false with the true while accusing those who tell the truth of being wrong or lying (fake news).
*The second is to dismiss all dissenting speeches and thus create an appearance of unanimity around the doctored truth. At this point, the dissidents are no longer hullabaloo-mongering storytellers, but become traitors.
*The third one to push the targets to practice symbolic acts of acquiescence to the new ideology.
A step has just been taken.”
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Translation: Roger Lagasse
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“[1] “The NATO campaign against freedom of expression”, Thierry Meyssan, Voltaire Network, December 5, 2016.
[2] “Subscribe”
[3] “Putchists in the Shadow of the Coronavirus”, Thierry Meyssan, Voltaire Network, March 31, 2020.
[4] “Disinfo: The bankers and the military prepare a takeover in the US”, EUvsDisinfo.eu, April 30, 2020.
[5] “Nato and the European Union are behind Decodex”, February 16, 2017; “The truth about « fake news »”, Thierry Meyssan, Voltaire Network, January 16, 2018.
[6] “Our Advisory Board”, NewsGuard, consulted May 3, 2020.”
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Added:
Among NewsGuard investors is Publicis Group. Several Publicis companies are focused on health and science.
Covid-19 is a dream come true for NewsGuard oligarchs. 8 of its 9 sub-tabs under its “Resources” tab are devoted to their beloved Covid-19:
“Misinformation Monitor” in April 2020 is devoted to Covid-19.
“COVID-19 Misinformation Resources”
“Coronavirus Misinformation Tracking Center
“Tracking Facebook’s COVID-19 Misinformation ‘Super-spreaders’”
“Tracking Facebook’s COVID-19 Misinformation ‘Super-spreaders’ in Europe”
“Tracking Twitter’s COVID-19 Misinformation ‘Super-spreaders’"
“Trail of Deceit: The 13 Most Popular COVID-19 Myths and How They Emerged”
“Health care hoax sites”
“Updates to Ratings”
There were very few “Updates to Ratings.” The page doesn’t say its updates are only about Covid-19, but following is an example of one update:
“5/14/2020: PowderedWigSociety.com: This Nutrition Label was updated and its rating on at least one of NewsGuard’s criteria changed. Its score changed from 12.5 to 0. This Nutrition Label was also updated to include details about the site’s coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic.”
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