Finally! This new app will protect you from fake news

Do you not possess the time, patience, and critical thinking skills to determine what is true? Do you want strangers to tell you what to believe?
Then this web browser plug-in is for you!

Microsoft recently announced its partnership with popular News Rating website NewsGuard to help users spot fake news with ease. This NewsGuard feature was rolled out to Edge for iOS preview users last year. Today, Microsoft is rolling out this feature to Edge for Android beta users. You can enable this feature by going to Settings-> News rating and toggle the ‘Display rating on address bar’ option.

NewsGuard uses journalism to fight false news, misinformation, and disinformation. Our trained analysts, who are experienced journalists, research online news brands to help readers and viewers know which ones are trying to do legitimate journalism—and which are not.

So who are these brave defenders of truth and justice? Neocons and spooks.

Soon after the social media “purge” of independent media sites and pages this past October, 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.
...Newsguard separates sites it deems worthy and sites it considers unreliable by using a color-coded rating — green, yellow, or red — and more detailed “nutrition labels” regarding a site’s credibility or lack thereof. Rankings are created by Newsguard’s team of “trained analysts.” The color-coding system may remind some readers of the color-coded terror threat-level warning system that was created after 9/11, making it worth noting that Tom Ridge, the former secretary of Homeland Security who oversaw the implementation of that system under George W. Bush, is on Newsguard’s advisory board.

It's nice to know that the useless Bush-era color-coded terror threat-level warning system is being recycled. What other bad ideas will they reuse?

Another Newsguard advisor of note is Richard Stengel, former editor of Time magazine, a “distinguished fellow” at the Atlantic Council and Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy under President Barack Obama. At a panel discussion hosted last May by the Council on Foreign Relations, Stengel described his past position at the State Department as “chief propagandist” and also stated that he is “not against propaganda. Every country does it and they have to do it to their own population and I don’t necessarily think it’s that awful.”
...
While Brill and Crovitz themselves are the company’s top investors, one of Newsguard’s most important investors is the Publicis Groupe....it is unsurprising that the Publicis Groupe counts many powerful corporations and governments among its clientele. Some of its top clients in 2018 included pharmaceutical giants Eli Lilly, Merck, Pfizer and Bayer/Monsanto as well as Starbucks, Procter & Gamble, McDonalds, Kraft Heinz, Burger King, and the governments of Australia and Saudi Arabia.

newsguard.jpg

Nothing says freedom like a partnership between multinational corporation and the MIC.
Hurrah! The ruling elite will save us from having to think for ourselves!

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34 users have voted.

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Protecting corporations

Another Newsguard service shows that this organization is also seeking to harm independent media financially by targeting online revenue. Through a service called “Brandguard,” which it describes as a “brand safety tool aimed at helping advertisers keep their brands off of unreliable news and information sites while giving them the assurance they need to support thousands of Green-rated [i.e., Newsguard-approved] news and information sites, big and small.”

At the time the service was announced last November, Newsguard co-CEO Brill stated that the company was “in discussions with the ad tech firms, leading agencies, and major advertisers” eager to adopt a blacklist of news sites deemed “unreliable” by Newsguard.
...
Though it is just getting started, Newsguard’s plan to insert its app into every device and major social-media network is a threat to any news site that regularly publishes information that rubs any of Newsguard’s investors, partners or advisors the wrong way. Given its plan to rank the English-language U.S. news sites that account for 98 percent of U.S. digital news consumption, Newsguard’s agenda is of the utmost concern to every independent media page active in the United States and beyond — given Newsguard’s promise to take its project global.

By linking up with former CIA and NSA directors, Silicon Valley Giants, and massive PR firms working for some of the most controversial governments and corporations in the world, Newsguard has betrayed the fact that it is not actually seeking to “restore trust and accountability” in journalism, but to “restore trust and accountability” in news outlets that protect the existing power structure and help shield the corporate-led oligarchy and military-industrial complex from criticism.

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18 users have voted.
detroitmechworks's picture

There's a little "Rating" now in Firefox in the upper right. However, it rates sites on how many tracking cookies it has to block, the connection, and privacy policies. Right now, c99 is getting a B+. Apparently the worst tracker offender on this site is google. Interestingly, Facebook and Twitter don't care. I personally think they just added us to the "Block" list, so it doesn't show up as much...

Just for reference... Almost all Corporate Media sites usually get D's...

At least it's a valuable, specific metric that allows me to know when the abyss is staring back at me.

But as far as facebook, well...

Edit. RIGHT! Not Left...

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15 users have voted.

I do not pretend I know what I do not know.

@detroitmechworks
for the exact opposite purpose as Newsguard.

Unrelated note, Newsguard did a "poll"

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16 users have voted.
jorogo's picture

@gjohnsit @gjohnsit
In fact, they were virtually self-recruited.

Out of "a representative sample of 25,000 U.S. Gallup Panel members" who were "invited" to install the extension, "706 panel members who used the tool evaluated its features and usefulness." IOW, 24,294 U.S. Gallup Panel members declined to try it.

The key distraction here is what is meant by "representative". The representation of the poll is of members who wanted the extension, just 2.8% of the ones queried whether they'd like to try it, so I'm offering that odds are pretty high that they'd have positive expectations for it.

Further, "Gallup’s invitation letter explained that a team of experienced journalists assigned the source ratings".

More - "Results are based on self - administered web surveys among the 706 U.S. adults..."

Knowing all that, it's hardly worth even looking at the numbers.

Now, I've got 25,000 left-handed mouse apps for anyone to try on their desktop; and if those who try them like them, that means everybody should use them, right? Actually, that would be closer to true than this poll is - 10% of people are lefties, not 2.8%.

Edit: And they were paid. "Respondents who completed the survey received a $2 incentive."

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15 users have voted.

"If I sit silently, I have sinned." - Mossadegh

GreatLakeSailor's picture

@detroitmechworks
Are you using a plug-in? I see a lot of ratings-type plug-ins FF/Moz's plug-ins catalog.

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3 users have voted.

The only reason the 1% are rich is because the 99% have agreed to it.

edg's picture

Does anybody have NewsGuard available to check us out? How about DKos and Red State?

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13 users have voted.
travelerxxx's picture

@edg

Pretty sure the installation of the NewsGuard browser extension will soon be a requisite for an account at DKos. Maybe it already is...

As far as Red State goes, I assume they will be exempt. Gotta be balanced, you know.

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6 users have voted.
dystopian's picture

@edg The story on Newsguard I saw showed FOX NEWS as GREEN - a good source. So was CNN and MSNBC. Any other questions? Wink

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14 users have voted.

We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.
Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.
both - Albert Einstein

travelerxxx's picture

@dystopian

... showed FOX NEWS as GREEN - a good source. So was CNN and MSNBC.

Color me not surprised ... or red, as needed. Anything but green.

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6 users have voted.

We finally have the Ministry of Truth that we have been needing for so long.

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27 users have voted.
zoebear's picture

"DemocracyGuard"?

An individual rating system that will require people to log on and rate you for your "trustworthiness" on all things the algorithm deems essential to "democracy"?

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14 users have voted.

If we surrendered to earth's intelligence we could rise up rooted, like trees
~ Rainer Maria Rilke

truthful it is and how much courage it takes to tell the truth.

That ad was brought to you by the publication that befouled itself during Plamegate and once held a story for over a year because the administration (not the current one) asked it to. Oh, yeah, and all this stuff, too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_York_Times_controversies

And that list doesn't even go back very far.

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17 users have voted.
dervish's picture

Does anyone remember the SNL skit "Time Lies"?

I looked for it on Youtube, but it's down the memory hole apparently.

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8 users have voted.

"Obama promised transparency, but Assange is the one who brought it."

dystopian's picture

Control the message to control the people. They felt like they lost in '16 because they lost control of the message and are in overdrive trying to reclaim it. With privatized 'Ministries of Truth'. Sure glad to see Tom Ridge still getting to play red green yellow.
But now for big bucks no doubt. He must have really been taken with it. Simple minds. That Verrit thing worked real good... hopefully this will do as well.

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12 users have voted.

We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.
Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.
both - Albert Einstein

ggersh's picture

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7 users have voted.

If our governments and institutions can no longer tell us the truth because it undermines the ruling elites, they've failed the citizenry. And if we remain complicitly silent, then we've failed ourselves.

snoopydawg's picture

@ggersh

like that one of Trump with the Saudis is.

IMG_3090.JPG

"This is my 'I'm not a warmonger' look. Or was it when she was grifting money from them for her foundation? I dislike hypocrites. I do like how her jacket matches the chair though.

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11 users have voted.

Disclaimer: No Russian, living or dead, had anything to do with the posting of this proudly home-grown comment

Hawkfish's picture

@snoopydawg

Than to feel good.

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5 users have voted.

We may find that we’re all alone
In the dream of the proud.
- Pink Floyd, On the Turning Away

ggersh's picture

@snoopydawg the green comes later

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5 users have voted.

If our governments and institutions can no longer tell us the truth because it undermines the ruling elites, they've failed the citizenry. And if we remain complicitly silent, then we've failed ourselves.

dervish's picture

@ggersh I always knew she was a reptile, but I didn't know what kind.

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8 users have voted.

"Obama promised transparency, but Assange is the one who brought it."

Bisbonian's picture

@snoopydawg That's funny...that was the first thing I saw.

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7 users have voted.

"I’m a human being, first and foremost, and as such I’m for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole.” —Malcolm X

The Liberal Moonbat's picture

naturalcamo_0.jpg

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8 users have voted.

“The enemy wasn't men, or women, or the old, or even the dead. It was just bleedin' stupid people, who came in all varieties. And no one had the right to be stupid.”

― Terry Pratchett, Monstrous Regiment

snoopydawg's picture

@The Liberal Moonbat

or the moth. Has anyone?

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1 user has voted.

Disclaimer: No Russian, living or dead, had anything to do with the posting of this proudly home-grown comment

The Liberal Moonbat's picture

@snoopydawg

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2 users have voted.

“The enemy wasn't men, or women, or the old, or even the dead. It was just bleedin' stupid people, who came in all varieties. And no one had the right to be stupid.”

― Terry Pratchett, Monstrous Regiment

OzoneTom's picture

@ggersh

I don't know how they got it pulled from Consortium News, but it is also available here:
https://www.mintpressnews.com/this-2012-clinton-memo-that-killed-half-a-...

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5 users have voted.
travelerxxx's picture

@ggersh

I find the article still online at Consortium News. I believe they put it back up. No idea why it would have been pulled. Note that the link address is not the same as the original.

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3 users have voted.
divineorder's picture

But glad you brought it up again.

Reminds me a bit when Google started "Safe Search." Wonder if they are integrating this into it?

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7 users have voted.

A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.

@divineorder
I missed it.

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1 user has voted.
mimi's picture

"Kubrick, Nixon and the man in the moon", saying this were the first fake news story in history. Then I checked it on the channel ARTE (who broadcasted that film) in their mediathek and they said it was a satire with intermingled documentary quotes from Kissinger, Rumsfeld and some filmmaker. As I started watching the film in the middle (around TC 20)and didn't see the beginning I got confused for a while.

So, where is the app for that kind of fake stories?
The app is the little /s sign, so you have the fun of confusing people, and who can resist that

Kubrick, Nixon und der Mann im Mond

I want hard news and nothing else.

I start a book about Operation Paperclip by Annie Jacobsen. I hope it's not satire in hard news clothes.

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5 users have voted.
The Liberal Moonbat's picture

This is the sort of thing people ought to be alerted to on par with virus/scam warnings.

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4 users have voted.

“The enemy wasn't men, or women, or the old, or even the dead. It was just bleedin' stupid people, who came in all varieties. And no one had the right to be stupid.”

― Terry Pratchett, Monstrous Regiment

lotlizard's picture

https://www.mintpressnews.com/newsguardneocon-backed-fact-checker-plans-...

To repeat and emphasize a link already included in the original post.

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7 users have voted.

who can you trust?

Answer: You can't trust Microsoft.

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7 users have voted.
https://caucus99percent.com/comment/392416
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