President Trump’s new chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, Brendan Carr, is now eyeing changes to liability protections for Big Tech companies that “rely on” the self-appointed fact-checking organization NewsGuard. This is a step in dismantling the “censorship cartel.” He plans to do it to protect Americans’ free speech rights.
Every fact-checking organization is left-wing or far-left, and they all have two goals – censorship and making money.
In November, Mr. Carr wrote to the leaders of Apple, Alphabet, Microsoft, and Meta asking about their partnerships with the “Orwellian-named” fact-checking organization NewsGuard.
NewsGuard was founded in 2018 by two men, one a sketchy businessman and the other tied to Soros. They have deep ties to New York City’s left-leaning media elite. NewsGuard claims to be a helpful tool for guiding social media and internet users. The outlet wants to direct people away from allegedly misleading or false information and to reliable sources of information. If people subscribe, they get an extension for their browser.
More importantly, some large tech companies use NewsGuard to determine what is reliable. Forgive this word, but it’s the best one to describe them – they’re scum. People who censor are evil.
The Broader Censorship Cartel
NewsGuard has targeted conservative and libertarian publications for years, rating them lower than liberal and far-left publishers. Mr. Carr now says the organization is “part of the broader censorship cartel.” He noted a House Committee on Small Business 2024 Staff Report said that NewsGuard’s ratings “combined with NewsGuard’s vast partnerships in the advertising industry select winners and losers in the news media space.”
“NewsGuard does so by leveraging its partnerships with advertising agencies to censor targeted outlets effectively,” Mr. Carr wrote.
He noted that NewsGuard offers an extension for Google’s Chrome, Apple’s Safari, and Microsoft’s Bing and askedApple, Alphabet, Meta, and Microsoft to share lists of their products that use the fact-checking service or that allows any of their users to “use or rely on any NewsGuard product.”
Mr. Carr warned that technology companies’ liability shield Section 230 could be at risk if they work with NewsGuard.
On November 24, he posted on X, “Any tech company that continues to rely on NewsGuard is putting its Section 230 protections in serious jeopardy.”
Steers Advertising Dollars
NewsGuard steers advertising dollars and potential readers away by giving websites lower trustworthiness rankings.
The FTC chairman, Andrew Ferguson, echoed those complaints in a letter in December. Mr. Ferguson suggested that the FTC should also investigate NewsGuard, saying the service’s ratings are used to “choke off the advertising dollars that are the lifeblood for many websites.”
Conservative outlets often receive lower ratings from NewsGuard than liberal sites. Fox News Digital gets a 69.5 percent rating.
The Daily Wire receives a 57 percent rating, and NewsGuard warns readers to “proceed with caution” because the site “generally fails to maintain basic standards of accuracy.”
Left-wing outlets consistently tend to score higher than conservative ones. CNN receives an 80 percent rating, and the Washington Post receives a 100 percent rating. WaPo is a CIA propaganda outlet.
The ratings can be used to deter advertising dollars from websites with low scores.
A Shady Operation?
NewsGuard’s CEO, Gordon Crovitz, has denied Mr. Carr’s allegations that advertisers are using his service to blacklist conservative sites and hurt their revenues. In response to the FCC chairman’s letter, Mr. Crovitz said the allegations stemmed from reporting by the conservative news outlet Newsmax. NewsGuard gave them a 20 percent credibility rating.
He pointed out that some left-wing outlets, such as MSNBC and the New York Times, score lower than conservative outlets. Additionally, he insisted that many conservative outlets have benefited from NewsGuard “driving advertising revenue to their sites.”
“We note that our journalism is itself speech protected by the First Amendment, and we’re concerned to see a government official using the powers of his office, however unwittingly after having been misled by Newsmax, to attempt to prevent a private company (NewsGuard) from producing journalistic content,” Mr. Crovitz said in a statement.
In addition to Mr. Carr, the House Oversight Committee is also investigating NewsGuard to determine its “impact on protected First Amendment speech and how its contracts with government agencies may contribute to censorship under the guise of combatting misinformation.”
They have a contract with the far-left National Education Association.
The founders are a couple of sketchy businessmen, one tied to George Soros. They are horrible to deal with and are self-appointed censors.
Facebook, Google, Apple, Microsoft & others have played central roles in the censorship cartel.
The Orwellian named NewsGuard along with “fact checking” groups & ad agencies helped enforce one-sided narratives.
The censorship cartel must be dismantled. pic.twitter.com/Xf0sEYOUfv
— Brendan Carr (@BrendanCarrFCC) November 15, 2024
Watch:
FCC Chair Brendan Carr Threatens to DEFUND NPR and Corporate media for biased coverage:
“They should be serving the needs of their community. You are not supposed to be running ads. They are pushing viewers towards preferred politics. Congress should not fund them.” pic.twitter.com/LGfVbmPKGx
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) January 27, 2025
Subscribe to the Daily Newsletter
wpDiscuz
