“Newsguard” Browser Plug-In Gives Green Light

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Advisory: Be careful of what you read on social media. The algorithms used by these platforms have no regard for Biblical truth. They target your emotions to keep you engaged on their site so their advertisers can drop more ads. These platforms exist to enrich their stockholders. Consider God’s promise to Believers in James 1:5, “If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you.”

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Ratings – Silencing of the Lambs…

“Christian Censorship” Here we are — Tribulation, It’s time the godless pay, l (Daniel 9:24), and 2) He will judge the unbelieving, godless inhabitants, news sites – MSM, Facebook and Twitter, Microsoft, and Google and like-mined Anti-Christians of the earth (Revelation 6 – 18). The length of the Tribulation is seven years. This is determined by an understanding of the seventy weeks of Daniel (Daniel 9:24-27; also see the article on the Tribulation). The Great Tribulation is the last half of the Tribulation period, three and one-half years in length. It is distinguished from the Tribulation period because the Beast, or Antichrist, will be revealed, and the wrath of God will greatly intensify during this time. Thus, it is important at this point to emphasize that the Tribulation and the Great Tribulation are not synonymous terms. Within eschatology (the study of future things), the Tribulation refers to the full seven-year period while the “Great Tribulation” refers to the second half of the Tribulation.

It is Christ Himself who used the phrase “Great Tribulation” with reference to the last half of the Tribulation. In Matthew 24:21, Jesus says, “For then there will be great tribulation, such as has not occurred since the beginning of the world until now, nor ever shall.” In this verse, Jesus is referring to the event of Matthew 24:15, which describes the revealing of the abomination of desolation, the man also known as the Antichrist.

Some of you reading this may think I have some kind of persecution complex, but I do not. I have never expected the Christian life to be a picnic. Jesus never said the Christian life would be all honey and no bees, no work and all ease. In fact, He said quite the opposite.

The New Testament portrays Jesus as preparing his disciples for the reality of persecution from the very early parts of his ministry. Consider what he taught, for example, in Matthew 5:10-12:

“Blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward in heaven is great; for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you (NASB).”

The fact is, it is not enough for atheists, homosexuals, socialists and cultural leftists to have their own freedom and equality to believe whatever they believe (freedom which most Christians fully support). No, they want to ensure that Christians are not permitted to live out their own faith and convictions without retribution. This is the legacy of the New Tolerance movement. The doors of religious liberty are closing once again in Russia, after a brief twenty-six-year limited window. Are the doors of our four-hundred-year window of liberty closing? Frankly, that answer will be determined by what this generation of Christians in America does in the next ten years. “And the Lord will by no means leave the guilty unpunished.”

Christians are being ignored and marginalized in America, ridiculed in industrialized nations, driven underground and persecuted in multiple countries, and slaughtered by militant terrorists and rogue regimes in Africa and Southeast Asia.

https://hnewswire.com/artificial-intelligence-to-pave-way-for-antichrist/

In defining truth, it is first helpful to note what truth is not: 

   • Truth is not simply whatever works. This is the philosophy of pragmatism – an ends-vs.-means-type approach. In reality, lies can appear to “work,” but they are still lies and not the truth. 
   • Truth is not simply what is coherent or understandable. A group of people can get together and form a conspiracy based on a set of falsehoods where they all agree to tell the same false story, but it does not make their presentation true. 
   • Truth is not what makes people feel good. Unfortunately, bad news can be true. 
   • Truth is not what the majority says is true. Fifty-one percent of a group can reach a wrong conclusion. 
   • Truth is not what is comprehensive. A lengthy, detailed presentation can still result in a false conclusion. 
   • Truth is not defined by what is intended. Good intentions can still be wrong. 
   • Truth is not how we know; the truth is what we know. 
   • Truth is not simply what is believed. A lie believed is still a lie. 
   • Truth is not what is publicly proved. Truth can be privately known (for example, the location of buried treasure).

Shady “NewsGuard” browser plug-in gives green light ratings to all the fake news giants that have been caught in massive media hoaxes, including BuzzFeed, Rolling Stone, CNN, WashPost and NY Times

01/24/2019 / By Lance D Johnson

MSM News, False Perception…

A new browser plug-in called NewsGuard is being widely promoted and accepted by Big Tech and the mainstream leftist media. The app, already installed on mobile versions of Microsoft’s Edge browser, essentially publishes a list of blacklisted independent media sites and warns consumers not to trust them. The green-yellow-red flag system targets independent media and favors establishment, war-mongering, pharmaceutical-funded and left-leaning media sources.

NewsGuard, founded by establishment media insiders and intelligence operatives, is a for-profit venture that seeks to partner with Big Tech to degrade, de-legitimize, and blacklist independent news sites that have gained trust and influence over the past decade. NewsGuard is already giving green light ratings to all the fake news giants that have been caught in massive media hoaxes, including BuzzFeed, Rolling Stone, CNN, WashPost and NY Times.

The fight for power over the public’s trust and perception

A rapidly increasing number of people are losing trust in mainstream media channels. Official sources have blatant political, industrial, and ideological agendas that misconstrue facts and misrepresent events. The rise in popularity of independent media shows that people are questioning more and making up their own mind on important topics, history, medical decisions, and current events. The people who control big business, political policy, and conflict abroad want complete trust in their vision. The people with wealth and power are competing for control over your mind (and dollars) and they will stop at nothing to secure that trust. Your trust in them is vital to their financial success, fame, security, and further ascension to power.

The term “fake news” was created to destroy independent media and to restore Americans’ trust in official bought-off sources such as CNN, MSNBC, and The Washington Post. Ironically, CNN fabricates lies on a daily basis while driving a leftist political narrative that sometimes comes across as deranged and even anti-American.

CNN has driven countless false narratives in an attempt to disparage the current Presidential administration. The President has called out the BS along the way, giving a more realistic and transparent perspective on what his Administration is doing and has accomplished. The people working against him would like to taint, twist, obstruct, and confuse everything he is doing, instead of providing accurate scrutiny that is essential in a democracy; therefore the President is right when he flips the script and says CNN is the fake news and “the enemy of the people.”

NewsGuard’s team of analysts wants to restore CNN’s reputation through their coercive, biased app. They also want to destroy public trust in independent media through their app’s manipulative blacklisting feature. Sites that question the official narrative, such as Breitbart News, The Drudge ReportRT, and the Daily Mail, have already been blacklisted by this shady app. Does the U.K.’s third most popular British newspaper, the Daily Mail really “fail to maintain basic standards of accuracy and accountability” as NewsGuard postulates? The news site follows the most fundamental rules of proper journalism. The most reputable journalism source in the world, WikiLeaks, which has never had to retract a story due to false or misleading information, is also blacklisted to a “red” rating by NewsGuard.

As Breitbart notes, NewsGuard — a highly contested “anti-fake news” app — gives the Times piece on the bogus research a “green” or “true” rating. In fact, there are a number of stories about “sexism” in the tech industry, with many accusations that women are “under-represented” in tech. But is that really true?

Statistics from Catalyst show that women make up about 20 percent of the workforce in high-tech occupations. This, leftist say, is a clear indication that women are being marginalized and maligned by the entire industry. And if you were to look at only the number of women working in tech, you might find that to be true.

However, it is also important to look at how many women actually want to work in tech. The same stats published by Catalyst also show that only 18 percent of female college students are earning degrees in tech-related fields.

In other words, the number of women working in tech accurately reflects the number of women graduating from college with degrees in tech — which indicates there is no bias at all. Except, of course, for the bias of the liberal media.

See more coverage of the mainstream media’s latest scams at Propaganda.news.

Sources for this article include:

Breitbart.com

Catalyst.org

Ironically, sites that publish hit-jobs against conservative media publication such as Media Matters, Salon, the Clintonite Democrat, and The Huffington Post have all received the green light and are credited as the most trustworthy news sources. Sites such as BuzzFeed, recently humiliated for publishing alleged details about the ongoing Mueller investigation, were called out for lying by Robert Mueller himself. Even though BuzzFeedmisconstrued facts about the Mueller investigation that were exposed, the publication continued to promote their story. According to NewsGuard, though, BuzzFeed “regularly corrects or clarifies errors” and can be trusted above all the others.

Not to be outdone is the green-light NY Times, the Washington Post and CNN. All these official sources and their associates ran a very irresponsible news story accusing Trump-supporting teenagers of taunting a left-wing Native American senior. The Covington Catholic high school students were threatened on social media as a result. When the narrative was exposed, it was the Native American agitator who taunted the students who wore MAGA hats, and the students kept their cool. Of course, these official sources can be trusted, just as NewsGuard tells us in their app.

NewsGuard’s top advisors include intelligence operatives and neocons who worked for the Clinton, Bush, and Obama administrations with connection to Silicon Valley, U.S. oligarchs, globalists, leftists, and pharmaceutical business interests. Any news site that publishes content that challenges their power, their business interests, their sponsors, and their agendas will inevitably be blacklisted.

For more on this topic, see NewsGuardWatch.com.

Sources include:

Breitbart.com

Breitbart.com

NaturalNews.com

NewsGuard’s stated goal of separating advertising revenue from “unreliable news websites” isn’t just talk. The project’s investors include Publicis Groupe, one of the “big four” multinational advertising agencies whose subsidiaries include a number of high-profile advertising firms including Leo Burnett Worldwide and Saatchi & Saatchi. Controversially, one of Publicis Groupe’s other subsidiaries is Qorvis — a Washington D.C-based PR and crisis management firm which has represented the nation of Saudi Arabia since the September 11 attacks. The company led an aggressive media and lobbying campaign in the U.S. to defend Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen. As Qorvis’ parent company funds NewsGuard, this is presumably considered responsible journalism.

newsguard-blacklist-tells-advertisers-pull-ads-from-conservative-christian-pro-trump-sites-nteb-microsoft-fascist-liberals-fake-news

NewsGuard App is a tool for Neo-Cons and Neo-Libs and the NWO Anti-Christ Slave Master

“NewsGuard” is making us ask ‘who guards the guards.’ Turns out, Newsguard is run by a collection of NeoCons and NeoLibs who are working to block access to independent media.

One of the latest assaults against online free speech is a new Microsoft product known as “NewsGuard” that the company has branded as a helpful tool for internet users to discern “fake” news from “credible” news. But the browser plug-in actually functions completely contrary to this, classifying all independent news as “fake” while propping up mainstream media propaganda as “fact.”

Journalist Ben Swann explains

In partnership with Google, NewsGuard reportedly places a tiny insignia next to every link that’s pulled up in queries – either a green shield bearing a checkmark for “approved” content, or a red shield bearing an exclamation point for “unapproved” content. And as to be expected, the only content that gets a green insignia from NewsGuard is that which has been approved by the establishment.

A prominent example of this is a fake news story published by The Huffington Post about the gang-rape hoax that Rolling Stone originally reported on back in 2014. Though Rolling Stone was eventually forced to retract the story and hand over millions of dollars to the students who were falsely accused, NewsGuard has given this story a green checkmark – and this is just one example among many that reveal NewsGuard as just another fake news tool of deception.

“You see, when you do a Google search of stories, NewsGuard and Microsoft use the green checkmark to tell you what is and is not credible, what is and is not blacklisted, and this is NewsGuard giving the green light to a story that was so fake, it had to be retracted,” writes John Nolte for Breitbart News.

For more news about the establishment’s endless assault against online truth, be sure to check out Faked.news.

NewsGuard labels Breitbart story fake news simply for being Breitbart – even though the original story was simply aggregated from the Associated Press!

On the other hand, NewsGuard gave a red “unapproved” shield to a story published by Breitbart News that discussed President Trump’s efforts to build a wall at the southern border. As Nolte explains, the original story actually came from the Associated Press (AP) – but because it was Breitbart News that republished it, NewsGuard automatically labeled it as “fake.”

“Why is NewsGuard labeling that fake news? Simply because Breitbart News published it,” Nolte writes. “We didn’t even write that story. The AP did. We are simply aggregating the AP.”

On and on goes the charade, with all sorts of independent content that’s actually true – but unapproved by the establishment – bearing red shields under NewsGuard Ministry of Truth guidelines, revealing once again just how sinister the deep state has become in censoring the truth while promoting its lying propaganda.

Be sure to check out Nolte’s roundup of many more fake news stories that NewsGuard has labeled as “truth” at Breitbart News.

As laughable as the situation might be to those like our readers who are in the know about what’s going on, the sad reality is that many brainwashed Americans are likely to put their trust in something like NewsGuard, believing it to be an official stamp of what’s true and what isn’t. This is why we added NewsGuard to TruthWiki.org:

“NewsGuard is propaganda and fake-ratings research firm that uses pseudo-journalists to create new fake news filters as further promotion of misinformation and disinformation coming from today’s top 7,500 news sources,” explains the NewsGuard page at TruthWiki.org.

“Their trained analysts review online news brands to help propaganda mass media rule the internet by censoring, banning, abolishing, and bankrupting legitimate journalism that supports and propels healthy eating, natural medicine, sustainable farming practices, critical thinking, individualism, self-reliance, and of course, the Constitution.”

Be sure to check out the full entry for NewsGuard at TruthWiki.org.

Sources for this article include:

Breitbart.com

NaturalNews.com

TruthWiki.org

NewsGuard censorship plug-in labels confirmed media HOAXES to be “credible” news while blacklisting all independent media

One of the latest assaults against online free speech is a new Microsoft product known as “NewsGuard” that the company has branded as a helpful tool for internet users to discern “fake” news from “credible” news. But the browser plug-in actually functions completely contrary to this, classifying all independent news as “fake” while propping up mainstream media propaganda as “fact.”

In partnership with Google, NewsGuard reportedly places a tiny insignia next to every link that’s pulled up in queries – either a green shield bearing a checkmark for “approved” content, or a red shield bearing an exclamation point for “unapproved” content. And as to be expected, the only content that gets a green insignia from NewsGuard is that which has been approved by the establishment.

Mainstream Media Won’t Tell You the TRUTH!

A prominent example of this is a fake news story published by The Huffington Post about the gang-rape hoax that Rolling Stone originally reported on back in 2014. Though Rolling Stone was eventually forced to retract the story and hand over millions of dollars to the students who were falsely accused, NewsGuard has given this story a green checkmark – and this is just one example among many that reveal NewsGuard as just another fake news tool of deception.

“You see, when you do a Google search of stories, NewsGuard and Microsoft use the green checkmark to tell you what is and is not credible, what is and is not blacklisted, and this is NewsGuard giving the green light to a story that was so fake, it had to be retracted,” writes John Nolte for Breitbart News.

For more news about the establishment’s endless assault against online truth, be sure to check out Faked.news.

NewsGuard labels Breitbart story fake news simply for being Breitbart – even though the original story was simply aggregated from the Associated Press!

On the other hand, NewsGuard gave a red “unapproved” shield to a story published by Breitbart News that discussed President Trump’s efforts to build a wall at the southern border. As Nolte explains, the original story actually came from the Associated Press (AP) – but because it was Breitbart News that republished it, NewsGuard automatically labeled it as “fake.”

“Why is NewsGuard labeling that fake news? Simply because Breitbart News published it,” Nolte writes. “We didn’t even write that story. The AP did. We are simply aggregating the AP.”

On and on goes the charade, with all sorts of independent content that’s actually true – but unapproved by the establishment – bearing red shields under NewsGuard Ministry of Truth guidelines, revealing once again just how sinister the deep state has become in censoring the truth while promoting its lying propaganda.

Be sure to check out Nolte’s roundup of many more fake news stories that NewsGuard has labeled as “truth” at Breitbart News.

As laughable as the situation might be to those like our readers who are in the know about what’s going on, the sad reality is that many brainwashed Americans are likely to put their trust in something like NewsGuard, believing it to be an official stamp of what’s true and what isn’t. This is why we added NewsGuard to TruthWiki.org:

“NewsGuard is propaganda and fake-ratings research firm that uses pseudo-journalists to create new fake news filters as further promotion of misinformation and disinformation coming from today’s top 7,500 news sources,” explains the NewsGuard page at TruthWiki.org.

“Their trained analysts review online news brands to help propaganda mass media rule the internet by censoring, banning, abolishing, and bankrupting legitimate journalism that supports and propels healthy eating, natural medicine, sustainable farming practices, critical thinking, individualism, self-reliance, and of course, the Constitution.”

Be sure to check out the full entry for NewsGuard at TruthWiki.org.

Sources for this article include:

Breitbart.com

NaturalNews.com

TruthWiki.org

How a neocon-backed “fact-checker” plans to wage war on independent media and Christian Groups

MINNEAPOLIS — 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.

(Article by Whitney Webb republished from MintPressNews.com)

While a few, relatively uneventful months in the online news sphere have come and gone since Fly made this ominous warning, it appears that the neoconservatives and other standard-bearers of the military-industrial complex and the U.S. oligarchy are now poised to let loose their latest digital offensive against independent media outlets that seek to expose wrongdoing in both the private and public sectors.

As MintPress News Editor-in-Chief Mnar Muhawesh recently wroteMintPress was informed that it was under review by an organization called Newsguard Technologies, which described itself to MintPress as simply a “news rating agency” and asked Muhawesh to comment on a series of allegations, several of which were blatantly untrue. However, further 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.

More troubling still, Newsguard — by virtue of its deep connections to government and Silicon Valley — is lobbying to have its rankings of news sites installed by default on computers in U.S. public libraries, schools, and universities as well as on all smartphones and computers sold in the United States.

In other words, as Newsguard’s project advances, it will soon become almost impossible to avoid this neocon-approved news site’s ranking systems on any technological device sold in the United States. Worse still, if its efforts to quash dissenting voices in the U.S. are successful, Newsguard promises that its next move will be to take its system global.

Red light, green light . . .

Newsguard has received considerable attention in the mainstream media of late, having been the subject of a slew of articles in the Washington Post, the Hillthe Boston Globe, Politico, Bloomberg, Wired, and many others just over the past few months. Those articles portray Newsguard as using “old-school journalism” to fight “fake news” through its reliance on nine criteria allegedly intended to separate the wheat from the chaff when it comes to online news.

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.

As Newsguard releases a new rating of a site, that rating automatically spreads to all computers that have installed its news ranking browser plug-in. That plug-in is currently available for free for the most commonly used internet browsers. NewsGuard directly markets the browser plug-in to libraries, schools and internet users in general.

https://hnewswire.com/support-hnewswire-store/

The people spreading concrete information on the dangers of globalism are accomplishing far more than those sitting around buying bitcoin or passing around Q-cult nonsense.

According to its website, Newsguard has rated more than 2,000 news and information sites. However, it plans to take its ranking efforts much farther by eventually reviewing “the 7,500 most-read news and information websites in the U.S.—about 98 percent of news and information people read and share online” in the United States in English.

recent Gallup study, which was supported and funded by Newsguard as well as the Knight Foundation (itself a major investor in Newsguard), stated that a green rating increased users likelihood to share and read content while a red rating decreased that likelihood. Specifically, it found 63 percent would be less likely to share news stories from red-rated websites, and 56 percent would be more likely to share news from green-rated websites, though the fact that Newsguard and one of its top investors funded the poll makes it necessary to take these findings with a grain of salt.

However, some of the rankings Newsguard itself has publicized show that it is manifestly uninterested in fighting “misinformation.” How else to explain the fact that the Washington Post and CNN both received high scores even though both have written stories or made statements that later proved to be entirely false? For example, CNN falsely claimed in 2016 that it was illegal for Americans to read WikiLeaks releases and unethically colluded with the DNC to craft presidential debate questions to favor Hillary Clinton’s campaign that same year.

In addition, in 2017, CNN published a fake story that a Russian bank linked to a close ally of President Donald Trump was under Senate investigation. That same year, CNN was forced to retract a report that the Trump campaign had been tipped off early about WikiLeaks documents damaging to Hillary Clinton when it later learned the alert was about material already publicly available.

The Washington Post, whose $600 million conflicts of interest with the CIA goes unnoted by Newsguard, has also published false stories since the 2016 election, including one article that falsely claimed that “Russian hackers” had tapped into Vermont’s electrical grid. It was later found that the grid itself was never breached and the “hack” was only an isolated laptop with a minor malware problem. Yet, such acts of journalistic malpractice are apparently of little concern to Newsguard when those committing such acts are big-name corporate media outlets.

The left has been unhinged for some time, shouting a worldview that is angry, mean-spirited, vengeful, and untethered to reality. They are like a two-year-old throwing a volcanic temper tantrum in the dairy aisle at Safeway. If such a two-year-old had the power, he would reduce the entire building to rubble. Now that the infantile left is virtual without political power, their rage has become a menace to society, because they have a capacity to do harm a two-year-old does not.

NewsGuard@NewsGuardRating

Can you distinguish between propaganda and a free press? NewsGuard can help. #medialiteracywk #KnowYourNews

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1010:15 AM – Nov 6, 2018Twitter Ads info and privacy37 people are talking about this

Furthermore, Newsguard gives a high rating to Voice of America, the U.S. state-funded media outlet, even though its former acting associate director said that the outlet produces “fluff journalism” and despite the fact that it was recently reformed to “provide news that supports our [U.S.] national security objectives.” However, RT receives a low “red” rating for being funded by the Russian government and for “raising doubts about other countries and their institutions” (i.e., including reporting critical of the institutions and governments of the U.S. and its allies).

Keeping the conversation safe for the corporatocracy

Newsguard describes itself as an organization dedicated to “restoring trust and accountability” and using “journalism to fight false news, misinformation, and disinformation.” While it repeatedly claims on its website that its employees “have no political axes to grind” and “care deeply about reliable journalism’s pivotal role in democracy,” a quick look at its co-founders, top funders and advisory board make it clear that Newsguard is aimed at curbing voices that hold the powerful — in both government and the private sector — to account.

Newsguard is the latest venture to result from the partnership between Steven Brill and Louis Gordon Crovitz, who currently serve as co-CEOs of the group. Brill is a long-time journalist —  published in TIME and The New Yorker, among others — who most recently founded the Yale Journalism Initiative, which aims to encourage Yale students who “aspire to contribute to democracy in the United States and around the world” to become journalists at top U.S. and international media organizations. He first teamed up with Crovitz in 2009 to create Journalism Online, which sought to make the online presence of top American newspapers and other publishers profitable, and was also the CEO of the company that partnered up with the TSA to offer “registered” travelers the ability to move more quickly through airport security — for a price, of course.

While Brill’s past does not in itself raise red flags, Crovitz — his partner in founding Journalism Online, then Press+, and now Newsguard — is the last person one would expect to find promoting any legitimate effort to “restore trust and accountability” in journalism. In the early 1980s. Crovitz held a number of positions at Dow Jones and at the Wall Street Journal, eventually becoming executive vice president of the former and the publisher of the latter before both were sold to Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp in 2007. He is also a board member of Business Insider, which has received over $30 million from Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos in recent years.

In addition to being a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, Crovitz proudly notes in his bio, available on Newsguard’s website, that he has been an “editor or contributor to books published by the American Enterprise Institute and Heritage Foundation.” Though many MintPress readers are likely familiar with these two institutions, for those who are not, it is worth pointing out that the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) is one of the most influential neoconservative think tanks in the country and its “scholars,” directors and fellows have included neoconservative figures like Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, John Bolton and Frederick Kagan.

During the George W. Bush administration, AEI was instrumental in promoting the invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq and has since advocated for militaristic solutions to U.S. foreign policy objectives and the expansion of the U.S.’ military empire as well as the “War on Terror.” During the Bush years, AEI was also closely associated with the now-defunct and controversial neoconservative organization known as the Project for a New American Century (PNAC), which presciently called, four years before 9/11, for a “new Pearl Harbor” as needed to rally support behind American military adventurism.

The Heritage Foundation, like AEI, was also supportive of the war in Iraq and has pushed for the expansion of the War on Terror and U.S. missile defense and military empire. Its corporate donors over the years have included Procter & Gamble, Chase Manhattan Bank, Dow Chemical, and Exxon Mobil, among others.

Crovitz’s associations with AEI and the Heritage Foundation, as well as his ties to Wall Street and the upper echelons of corporate media, are enough to make any thinking person question his commitment to being a fair watchdog of “legitimate journalism.” Yet, beyond his innumerable connections to neoconservatives and powerful monied interest, Crovitz has repeatedly been accused of inserting misinformation into his Wall Street Journal columns, with groups like the Electronic Frontier Foundation accusing him of “repeatedly getting his facts wrong” on NSA surveillance and other issues. Some of the blatant falsehoods that have appeared in Crovitz’s work have never been corrected, even when his own sources called him out for misinformation.

For example, in a WSJ opinion piece that was written by Crovitz in 2012, Crovitz was accused of making “fantastically false claims” about the history of the internet by the very people he had cited to support those claims.

As TechDirt wrote at the time:

Almost everyone he [Crovitz] sourced or credited to support his argument that the internet was invented entirely privately at Xerox PARC and when Vint Cerf helped create TCP/IP, has spoken out to say he’s wrong. And that list includes both Vint Cerf, himself, and Xerox. Other sources, including Robert Taylor (who was there when the internet was invented) and Michael Hiltzik, have rejected Crovitz’s spinning of their own stories.”

The oligarch team’s deep bench

While Brill and Crovitz’s connections alone should be enough cause for alarm, a cursory examination of Newsguard’s advisory board makes it clear that Newsguard was created to serve the interests of American oligarchy. Chief among Newsguard’s advisors are Tom Ridge, the first Secretary of Homeland Security under George W. Bush and Ret. General Michael Hayden, a former CIA director, a former NSA director and principal at the Chertoff Group, a security consultancy seeking to “advise corporate clients and governments, including foreign governments” on security matters that was co-founded by former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, who also currently serves as the board chairman of major weapons manufacturer BAE Systems.

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.”

William Craddick@williamcraddick

At a Council on Foreign Relations forum about “fake news,” former Editor at Time Magazine Richard Stengel directly states that he supports the use of propaganda on American citizens – then shuts the session down when challenged about how propaganda is used against the third world1,4982:42 PM – May 11, 2018Twitter Ads info and privacy1,683 people are talking about this

Other Newsguard advisors include Don Baer, former White House communications director and advisor to Bill Clinton and current chairman of both PBS and the influential PR firm Burson Cohn & Wolfe as well as Elise Jordan, former communications director for the National Security Council and former speech-writer for Condoleezza Rice, as well as the widow of slain journalist Michael Hastings — who was writing an exposé on former CIA director John Brennan at the time of his suspicious death.

A look at Newguard’s investors further illustrates the multifarious connections between this organization and the American political and corporate elite. While Brill and Crovitz themselves are the company’s top investors, one of Newsguard’s most important investors is the Publicis Groupe. Publicis is the third largest global communications company in the world, with more than 80,000 employees in over 100 countries and annual revenue of over €9.6 billion ($10.98 billion) in 2017. It is no stranger to controversy, as one of its subsidiaries, Qorvis, recently came under fire for exploiting U.S. veterans at the behest of the Saudi government and also helped the Saudi government to “whitewash” its human rights record and its genocidal war in Yemen after receiving $6 million from the Gulf Kingdom in 2017.

Furthermore, given its size and influence, 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, McDonald’s, Kraft Heinz, Burger King, and the governments of Australia and Saudi Arabia. Given its influential role in funding Newsguard, it is reasonable to point out the potential conflict of interest posed by the fact that sites that accurately report on Publicis’ powerful clients — but generate bad publicity — could be targeted for such reports in Newsguard’s ranking.

In addition to the Publicis Groupe, another major investor in Newsguard is the Blue Haven Initiative, which is the venture capital “impact investment” fund of the wealthy Pritzker family — one of the top 10 wealthiest families in the U.S., best known as the owners of the Hyatt Hotel chain and for being the second-largest financial contributors to Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign.

Other top investors include John McCarter, a long-time executive at U.S. government contractor Booz Allen Hamilton, as well as Thomas Glocer, former CEO of Reuters and a member of the boards of pharmaceutical giant Merck & Co., financial behemoth Morgan Stanley, and the Council on Foreign Relations, as well as a member of the Atlantic Council’s International Advisory Board.

Through these investors, Newsguard managed to raise $6 million to begin its ranking efforts in March of 2018. Newsguard’s actual revenues and financing, however, have not been disclosed despite the fact that it requires the sites it ranks to disclose their funding. In a display of pure hypocrisy, Newsguard’s United States Securities and Exchange Commission Form D — which was filed March 5, 2018 — states that the company “declined to disclose” the size of its total revenue.

Why give folks a choice?

While even a quick glance at its advisory board alone would be enough for many Americans to decline to install Newsguard’s browser extension on their devices, the danger of Newsguard is the fact that it is diligently working to make the adoption of its app involuntary. Indeed, if voluntary adoption of Newsguard’s app was the case, there would likely be little cause for concern, given that its website attracts barely more than 300 visits per month and its social-media following is relatively small, with just over 2,000 Twitter followers and barely 500 Facebook likes at the time of this article’s publication.

To illustrate its slip-it-under-the-radar strategy, Newsguard has gone directly to state governments to push its browser extension onto entire state public library systems, even though its website suggests that individual public libraries are welcome to install the extension if they so choose. The first state to install Newsguard on all of its public library computers across its 51 branches was the state of Hawaii — which was the first to partner with Newsguard’s “news literacy initiative,” just last month.

NewsGuard@NewsGuardRating

Aloha, Hawaiian libraries! The state has added the NewsGuard extension to the computers patrons use in all its public libraries. Thanks to #Microsoft for sponsoring news literacy. http://bigislandnow.com/2018/12/17/libraries-join-newsguard-in-news-literacy-partnership/ …Libraries Join NewsGuard in News Literacy Partnershipbigislandnow.com95:49 PM – Dec 17, 2018Twitter Ads info and privacySee NewsGuard’s other Tweets

According to local media, Newsguard “now works with library systems representing public libraries across the country, and is also partnering with middle schools, high schools, universities, and educational organizations to support their news literacy efforts,” suggesting that these Newsguard services targeting libraries and schools are soon to become a compulsory component of the American library and education system, despite Newsguard’s glaring conflicts of interest with massive multinational corporations and powerful government power-brokers.

Notably, Newsguard has a powerful partner that has allowed it to start finding its way into the public library and school computers throughout the country. As part of its new “Defending Democracy” initiative, Microsoft announced last August that it would be partnering with Newsguard to actively market the company’s ranking app and other services to libraries and schools throughout the country. Microsoft’s press release regarding the partnership states that Newsguard “will empower voters by providing them with high-quality information about the integrity and transparency of online news sites.”

Since then, Microsoft has now added the Newsguard app as a built-in feature of Microsoft Edge, its browser for iOS and Android mobile devices, and is unlikely to stop there. Indeed, as a recent report in favor of Microsoft’s partnership with Newsguard noted, “we could hope that this new partnership will allow Microsoft to add NewsGuard to Edge on Windows 10 [operating system for computers] as well.”

Newsguard, for its part, seems confident that its app will soon be added by default to all mobile devices. On its website, the organization notes that “NewsGuard will be available on mobile devices when the digital platforms such as social media sites and search engines or mobile operating systems add our ratings and Nutrition Labels directly.” This shows that Newsguard isn’t expecting its rating systems to be offered as a downloadable application for mobile devices but something that social media sites like Facebook, search engines like Google, and mobile device operating systems that are dominated by Apple and Google will “directly” integrate into nearly every smartphone and tablet sold in the United States.

Boston Globe article on Newsguard from this past October makes this plan even more clear. The Globe wrote at the time:

Microsoft has already agreed to make NewsGuard a built-in feature in future products, and [Newsguard co-CEO] Brill said he’s in talks with other online titans. The goal is to have NewsGuard running by default on our computers and phones whenever we scan the Web for news.”

This eventuality is made all the more likely given the fact that, in addition to Microsoft, Newsguard is also closely connected to Google, as Google has been a partner of the Publicis Groupe since 2014, when the two massive companies joined Condé Nast to create a new marketing service called La Maison that is “focused on producing engaging content for marketers in the luxury space.” Given Google’s power in the digital sphere as the dominant search engine, the creator of the Android mobile operating system, and the owner of YouTube, its partnership with Publicis means that Newsguard’s rating system will soon see itself being promoted by yet another of Silicon Valley’s most powerful companies.

Furthermore, there is an effort underway to integrate Newsguard into social media sites like Facebook and Twitter. Indeed, as Newsguard was launched, co-CEO Brill stated that he planned to sell the company’s ratings of news sites to Facebook and Twitter. Last March, Brill told CNN that “We’re asking them [Facebook, Twitter, Microsoft, and Google] to pay a fraction of what they pay their P.R. people and their lobbyists to talk about the problem.”

On Wednesday, Gallup released a poll that will likely be used as a major selling point to social media giants. The poll — funded by Newsguard and the Knight Foundation, which is a top investor in Newsguard and has recently funded a series of Gallup polls relating to online news — seems to have been created with the intention of manufacturing consent for the integration of Newsguard with top social media sites.

This is because the promoted findings from the study are as follows:“89% of users of social media sites and 83% overall want social media sites and search engines to integrate NewsGuard ratings and reviews into their news feeds and search results” and “69% would trust social media and search companies more if they took the simple step of including NewsGuard in their products.” However, a disclaimer at the end of the poll states that the results, which were based on the responses of 706 people each of whom received $2 to participate, “may not be reflective of attitudes of the broader U.S adult population.”

With trust at Facebook nose-diving and Facebook’s censorship of independent media already well underway, the findings of this poll could well be used to justify its integration into Facebook’s platform. The connections of both Newsguard and Facebook to the Atlantic Council make this seem a given.

Financial censorship

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. This is unsurprising given the leading role of the Publicis Groupe, one of the world’s largest advertising and PR firms, has in funding Newsguard. As a consequence, it seems likely that many, if not all, of Publicis’ client companies, will choose to adopt this blacklist to help crush many of the news sites that are unafraid to hold them accountable.

It is also important to note here that Google’s connection to Publicis and thus Newsguard could spell trouble for independent news pages that rely on Google Adsense for some or all of their ad-based revenue. Google Adsense has long been targeting sites like MintPress by demonetizing articles for information or photographs it deemed controversial, including demonetizing one article for including a photo showing U.S. soldiers involved in torturing Iraqi detainees at the infamous Abu Ghraib prison.

Since then, Google — a U.S. military contractor — has repeatedly tried to shutter ad access to MintPress articles that involve reporting that is critical of U.S. empire and military expansion. One article that has been repeatedly flagged by Google details how many African-Americans have questioned whether the Women’s March has aided or harmed the advancement of African-Americans in the United States. Google has repeatedly claimed that the article, which was written by African-American author and former Washington Post bureau chief Jon Jeter, contains “dangerous content.”

Given Google’s already established practice of targeting factual reporting it deemed controversial through Adsense, Brandguard will likely offer the tech giant just the excuse it needs to cut off sites like MintPress, and other pages equally critical of empire, altogether.

An action plan for the genuine protection of journalism

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.

Not only is it trying to tank the reputations of independent media through its biased ranking system, but Newsguard is also seeking to attack these alternative voices financially and by slipping its ranking system by default onto all computers and phones sold in the U.S.

However, Newsguard and its agenda of guarding the establishment against criticism can be stopped. By supporting independent media and unplugging from social media sites committed to censorship, like Facebook and Twitter, we can strengthen the independent media community and keep it afloat despite the unprecedented nature of these attacks on free speech and watchdog journalism.

Beyond that, a key way to keep Newsguard and those behind it on their toes is to hold them to account by pointing out their clear conflicts of interest and hypocrisy and by derailing the narrative they are carefully crafting that Newsguard is “non-partisan,” “trustworthy,” and true guardians against the scourge of “fake news.”

While this report has sought to be a starting point for such work, anyone concerned about Newsguard and its connections to the war machine and corrupt corporations should feel encouraged to point out the organization’s own conflicts of interests and shady connections via its Twitter and Facebook pages and the feedback section on Newsguard’s website. The best way to defeat this new tool of the neocons is to put them on notice and to continue to expose Newsguard as a guardian of empire, not a guardian of journalism.

Correction | An earlier version of this story wrote that CNN’s collusion with the Clinton campaign was illegal. However, upon further investigation, MintPress News could not corroborate that such a move was, in fact, illegal, though it is clearly in breach of journalistic ethics. As a consequence, the sentence in question was changed to say that CNN “unethically colluded” with the Clinton campaign. MintPress apologizes for the error and thanks to its readers for bringing this oversight to our attention. Source

Tagged Under: CensorshipCollusionconspiracydisinfoFacebookFact Checkfake newsfinancefinancial censorshipfree pressfree speechgovernmentindependent mediaJournalismliesmainstream mediamediaNeoconneoconservativenews cartelsnewsguardOrwellianpoliticspropagandaSocial mediasocietyTwitterTyranny

Self-Appointed Internet Police Declare MedicalKidnap.com and DOJ Vaccine Court Reports Fake News

Self-appointed Internet Police “NewsGuard” claims Health Impact News publishes “false content” including Medical Kidnapping stories, Department of Justice quarterly reports on settlements for vaccine injuries and deaths, and even Brian Shilhavy’s Bible Study devotional writings on health.

NewsGuard: What are They “Guarding”? “Fake” News Ratings Based on Biased Editorial Views – Not Fact-Checking

by Brian Shilhavy
Editor, Health Impact News

Health Impact News was recently contacted by John Gregory, a medical reporter working for the company NewsGuard, a self-appointed Internet policing group that awards “nutrition badge” ratings for websites determining if they are “reliable” or not.

Mr. Gregory accused me right upfront of publishing “false” claims, and asked me to comment on a list of articles in our network that he determined were “false.”

Curiously, one of the articles he chose to exhibit as something published that was “false” was one of our articles on the Department of Justice quarterly reports on compensated cases for vaccine injuries and deaths in the U.S. Vaccine Court, submitted every three months to the federal government Advisory Commission on Childhood Vaccines (ACCV) under the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

The article is reporting what is public information from government sources. It is not even considered controversial, and in the introduction, I even write: “The fact that the annual flu shot is deadly and dangerous is not a fact even in dispute.” The flu shot is by far the most compensated vaccine for settlements in the U.S. Vaccine Court each year, according to these government reports.

The controversial part of the flu shot that is in dispute is how many people are actually injured and killed by the flu shot every year because government health agencies claim the number is very low, and that the risk of dying from the flu is greater, justifying the continued practice of mass influenza vaccination.

So I asked Mr. Gregory:

My question to you: What is NewsGuard’s criteria for whether something is “false content” and “false claims”?

What are you claiming in this article is “false”? We are, to my knowledge, the only site that publishes the Department of Justice quarterly reports on compensated cases for vaccine injuries and deaths in the U.S. Vaccine Court, at the federal government’s Advisory Commission on Childhood Vaccines quarterly meetings. Everything in this article is based on verifiable government documents available to the public, including the GAO report.

What is false?

The only reply Mr. Gregory supplied was the canned response from their website:

You can read more about NewsGuard’s nine criteria, which evaluate a website’s credibility and transparency practices, here: https://www.newsguardtech.com/ratings/rating-process-criteria/

To pass the first one, “Does not repeatedly publish false content,” we explain that “The site does not repeatedly produce stories that have been found—either by journalists at NewsGuard or elsewhere—to be clearly and significantly false, and which have not been quickly and prominently corrected.”

So I replied back to Mr. Gregory that this reply still did not answer my question:

Yes, I did read what you have published on your website regarding “criteria,” but that does not answer my question as to how you determine what is “false content” and “false claims.” The normal definition of “false” content or claims would be something like: Person xyz was arrested on charges at x date, when the fact checking would determine that this person never was, in fact, arrested or detained on any charges. Determining that it is “false” is based on the facts, not opinion.

So is NewGuard basically an editorial board rendering opinions, without fact checking?

The best way you could explain your process of determining what is “false” is by answering the questions I posed in my first email regarding the examples of articles you are claiming are “false.” For example, the article about the flu shot that you state is “false” is based on factual evidence supplied in public sources, and those sources are government sources. Do you doubt, for example, that the U.S. Vaccine Court is paying settlements for vaccine injuries and deaths?

Mr. Gregory once again avoided the question and gave another canned response that was not even appropriate to my question, because the article in question was not making health claims but reporting vaccine injuries and deaths:

In determining whether health claims are false or unsubstantiated, the trained journalists at NewsGuard rely on authoritative sources, reporting from major news organizations and reliable, peer-reviewed scientific evidence. We do not rely on limited anecdotal claims and personal testimonies about a treatment’s benefits.

Therefore, it seems that NewsGuard is making editorial decisions, and not fact-checking anything.

Pharmaceutical Industry Bias

John Gregory is listed as a “Staff Analyst” on the NewGuard site and his bio states:

John Gregory is a Staff Analyst for NewsGuard based out of Chicago. He previously served as a senior reporter for TriMed Media’s HealthExec.com, covering health care policy, regulation and business.

HealthExec.com and its parent company, TriMed Media, are trade publications for the medical and pharmaceutical industry.

I noticed that neither website was rated by NewsGuard so I asked Mr. Gregory:

How does NewsGuard determine which sites are “news sites” that need to be monitored by your service? For example, I noticed that your former employer who utilized your journalistic skills, https://www.healthexec.com/, is not rated.

His reply:

We determine what sites to rate largely based on how often their articles are shared on social media. HealthExec.com generates far less traffic than your sites.

So I asked him:

Do you have this criteria published anywhere that you use to decide which sites to rate and which ones not to?

He did not supply any reference to a section of the NewsGuard website where the criteria are published as to which websites get evaluated and rated and which ones do not.

But judging from the fact that NewsGuard has given negative ratings to any website that presents evidence against the belief espoused in the corporate-sponsored “mainstream” media’s narrative that “the science is settled” regarding vaccines and that no other views besides the view that all vaccines are “safe and effective” should be allowed to be published, I think it is safe to say that the main reason NewsGuard chose to review our websites was because we used our First Amendment rights to publish contrary evidence about vaccines, including articles from medical doctors, scientists, and attorneys who present the other side of the vaccine debate.

I asked Mr. Gregory, as a medical journalist, if the belief that “the science is settled” was ever applied to any other medical products or topics besides vaccines:

You are a journalist, so let me ask you: Have you ever interviewed scientists or other medical professionals who would make such as statement regarding any other topic besides vaccines where the “science is settled”? Is this a factual statement, or is it false? New vaccines are being developed all the time and entering the market, and is the public to understand that the science for all vaccines is settled?

I received no reply to these questions.

MedicalKidnap.com and Created4Health also Rated as “Unreliable”

molech-child-sacrifice

Medicine: Idolatry in the Twenty-First Century – An article on Created4Health.org.

Curiously, when they gave Health Impact News a negative rating, they even gave a negative rating to Created4Health.org, which is not even a news site but a site where I publish my devotional articles based on Bible studies, a site that receives far less traffic than HealthExec.com.

They also gave a negative rating to MedicalKidnap.com. Mr. Gregory accused us of simply taking unverified social media posts from parents who claimed their children were being kidnapped by the state and asked us if we even bothered to verify their stories. My reply:

We have been publishing Medical Kidnapping (this is a term I originally coined) articles since 2014, and the articles that we break are meticulously vetted.

Not only do we interview the parents and family members, but we also obtain supporting documentation including court documents and attorney statements in the articles where we break the story.

Many times, local news sources or even national news sources (such as Dr. Phil) also pick up our stories. It can sometimes take weeks, or even months, to research and publish one of these stories.

This answer apparently did not satisfy Mr. Gregory, because he still pointed out two stories where we used Facebook postings, even though I explained to him that these stories were still vetted. One was the video of Charity Lewis in Kentucky who had her daughter Demiyah die while in foster care, and the video went viral before we even published her Facebook video.

Local news affiliates in Kentucky (rated Green and reliable by NewsGuard ironically) confirmed that her daughter died while in foster care.

How sad that now some unsuspecting readers may be fooled into thinking that NewsGuard’s ratings are based on fact instead of editorial decisions, and may erroneously think that the stories on MedicalKidnap.com are not true.

NewsGuard Demands Transparency without being Transparent Themselves – How Does NewsGuard Make Money?

Mr. Gregory went to great lengths to point out that I own a company that sells coconut oil, and that I do not disclose this fact within articles that I write about the health benefits of coconut oil. He also claimed that we did not disclose who owned Health Impact News.

I replied to him and showed him the About Us section of Health Impact News where we clearly disclose these facts, especially that I am the founder of both companies. They were not satisfied with the word “founder” to equate ownership, so we changed this to make it clear that I am the owner of Sophia Media, LLC.

I also explained that FDA laws prohibited me from promoting my own coconut oil products where health benefits are being made, as the FDA only allows approved pharmaceutical drugs to make disease-curing claims.

He challenged me on this point, so I pointed out to him that in 2005 the FDA sent us a warning letter stating that customer testimonials, links to peer-reviewed literature, and other text on the website where we were selling coconut oil constituted marketing coconut oil as an “unapproved drug” and demanding that we remove them.

We had to hire a regulatory attorney to help us navigate through these FDA issues or have our products seized by U.S. Marshals. We put all the articles about the health benefits of coconut oil on a separate website (coconut-info.com which was later changed to coconutoil.com after we purchased the domain name). This was the genesis of what is today Health Impact News, as we felt the public had a right to this information that was being censored.

Who wouldn’t want to link to their own products from information about how much a product like a coconut oil was improving their lives? There is absolutely no logic to the idea that I was hiding this fact to benefit myself somehow, where I was clearly not benefiting from being able to link to my own coconut oil products.

As a result, anyone selling coconut oil could benefit from our information, and that is exactly what happened as the public woke up to the truth about the edible oil industry and started demanding more coconut oil, which today can be purchased in just about any store selling groceries now.

But what about NewsGuard? How do they derive their income? Their website states:

Our revenue comes from the platforms and search engines for licensing our ratings in order to include them in their feeds and search results.

So I asked him:

Since Google accounts for more than 90% of all Internet searches, can you please tell us how much revenue you obtain from Google for your services?

His reply was:

We have no business relationship with Google at this time.

So I asked again:

If you do not earn revenue from Google, then which search engines do you receive revenue from? Can you provide a list of companies that pay for your services?

They refused to answer this question.

Who are NewsGuard’s clients? This seems to be a closely guarded secret, as on their United States Securities and Exchange Commission Form D filed March 5, 2018, there is an option for disclosing the size of its revenue, but that box was checked, “Decline to disclose.” (See Dr. Mercola’s article on NewsGuard below for more info.)

The NewsGuard Browser Add-on is Not Popular: More 1 Star Ratings than 5 Star

Since starting with great fanfare with the corporate-sponsored media in 2018, NewsGuard’s browser add-on has had time to be used by Internet users, and the reviews are not very good. There are generally more 1-star reviews than 5-star reviews in the four browsers where their add-on is available to rate websites.

A quick survey of user reviews shows that those giving a low rating are generally critical of the browser add-on being biased. Here are some samples:

Its worse than fake news, i’ve tested it and believe me its as biased as hell .

This extension is BIASED. Ridiculous. I’m not sure who this stupid app is even intended for: if I wanted my information to reflect reality I wouldn’t even need NewsGuard, I would be getting all my news from mainstream sites to begin with…

When you first see this, you have a small hope that it wouldn’t be biased. But of course this is just another piece of the existing media machine to give legitimacy to the news websites who do as they are told and report events from the perspective of the Established Narrative. Those who report from a different perspective, who objectively speaking are no better or worse, get lower ratings.

For the few positive reviews posted, it appears that they agree with the rating system because it reflects their own views. Here are some samples:

Stop getting your news from The Blaze, Breitbart and Drudge Report. They are correctly flagged as unreliable news sources. It’s nothing to do with bias – they’re simply deceitful and dishonest sources of news.

This really has the potential to make the world a better place. Great work and the score cards are fascinating. I have heard people call this service biased towards left wing news sites but I as far as I can see Newsguard base their score cards on good accurate factual analysis. The “bias” appears to be highlighting that right wing new sites are more likely to produce misleading news. That’s not a bias, its just reality.

What Can You Do to Fight Corporate Censorship?

Walter Cronkite was one of the most famous TV journalists and perhaps one of the most trusted men in America in the 1960s and 1970s. He read the news on the CBS TV network each evening Monday through Friday from 1962 through 1981.

This is what Walter Cronkite wrote in the introduction to the 1996 book Censored – The News That Didn’t Make the News- And Why, by Carl Jensen. Walter Cronkite wrote:

A handful of us determine what will be on the evening news broadcasts, or, for that matter, in the New York Times or Washington Post or Wall Street Journal…. Indeed it is a handful of us with this awesome power… a strongly editorial power.

…we must decide which news items out of hundreds available we are going to expose that day. And those [news stories] available to us already have been culled and re-culled by persons far outside our control.

There is strong evidence that NewsGuard is comprised of these “old-school journalists” who represent corporate interests and are doing everything they can to squelch free speech on the Internet, especially on social media platforms.

In 2009 the corporate “mainstream” media was singing the praises of social media, specifically Twitter, as Twitter users in Iran were taking to the social media platform with pictures and videos that allegedly painted a different picture of Iran’s elections than what was being portrayed in the State-sponsored media coming out of Iran. Here’s what CBS wrote in 2009:

An opposition activist spreads word of an upcoming protest in the streets of Tehran. Another posts pictures of clashes between demonstrators and police.

As Iran’s government cracks down on traditional media after the country’s disputed presidential election, tech-savvy Iranians have turned to the microblogging site Twitter.

Its use to organize and send pictures and messages to the outside world – in real time as events unfolded – was a powerful example of how such tools can overcome government attempts at censorship.

“When I’m not connected to Twitter it means that I’m disconnected from the world because the state TV doesn’t report many things!” wrote one Twitter user who identifies himself as “hamednz” and communicated with The Associated Press through e-mail. (Source.)

Fast forward to 2016, when the corporate “mainstream” media’s ordained candidate to win the 2016 U.S. Presidential elections, Hillary Clinton, is reported to have near double-digit leads in the polls heading into election day.

Whoops! For perhaps the first time in U.S. history, the corporate media got it wrong, and the unthinkable happened: the other guy won, mainly because of support and the flow of news outside traditional corporate media outlets. (Note: Health Impact News is non-political and does not endorse either major political party in the U.S.)

All of a sudden, those social media platforms that were praised for reporting events in Iran in 2009 that contradicted the dominate national media, were vilified for publishing “fake news.”

So what can you do to stop companies like NewsGuard from trying to censor the independent alternative media like Health Impact News?

The browsers that support their add-on have a section to report “abuse.” Let them know that NewsGuard is misrepresenting their app, and is not a trustworthy source for evaluating “news.”

Mozilla’s Firefox browser is probably the most receptive to hearing your views on the NewsGuard add-on, as they are not owned by one of the top technology companies in the world like the other three browsers are (Chrome-Google, Edge-Microsoft, and Safari-Apple.)

To file a complaint, install the add-on, test it to see for yourself if they are what they claim “to fight false news, misinformation, and disinformation,” or if they are biased.

In the add-on section of Firefox, where you can manage your browser extensions, click on the three dots to the far right to see a menu:

Click on “Report” and then click on fourth option – “Pretend to be something it’s not”

Then click “Next” and on the next page use your own words to explain why Firefox should not include this add-on.

The other three browsers have similar ways for you to voice your displeasure with NewsGuard, and even if they may not be as receptive to your views due to the fact that they are well-funded and tend to represent the same views as the corporate media, they still need to hear your voice!

Health Impact News provides a service to the public that often is seldom found elsewhere, and that is especially true with our Medical Kidnapping stories, where we are one of the few places parents can come to and find a platform to tell the world what is happening to America’s children who are being kidnapped by the State, and often end up being sexually trafficked.

What a shame it would be if the corporate censorship forces get their way.

To learn more about who is behind the company NewsGuard, Dr. Joseph Mercola’s investigative report is worth reading.

BEWARE: New Plan to Censor Health Websites

Excerpts:

Americans’ trust in the media is at an all-time low. According to a 2017 Survey on Trust, Media and Democracy by the Knight Foundation, 43 percent of Americans have a negative view of news media compared to 33 percent reporting a positive view, while 66 percent believe “most news media do not do a good job of separating fact from opinion.”

Seventy-three percent believe the proliferation of “fake news” on the internet is a major problem, and only half feel confident that readers can get to the facts by sorting through bias.

However, individual perception about what is true and what actually constitutes fake news varies. As reported by Medium, “A majority of Americans believe people knowingly portraying false information as if it were true ‘always’ constitutes fake news.”

NewsGuard — The New Strategy Used to Deceive You

All of this brings me to the topic at hand, and the strategy the media is using to restrict your access to the truth from websites like (Mercola.com), namely the latest self-appointed arbiter of trustworthiness in online media, NewsGuard.

According to the group’s website:

“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.

Our Green-Red ratings signal if a website is trying to get it right or instead has a hidden agenda or knowingly publishes falsehoods or propaganda.”

In other words, NewsGuard is setting itself up as the self-appointed global arbiter of what information is “trustworthy” — based on nine “credibility and transparency” factors — not only for information viewed on private electronic devices but also for information accessible in public libraries and schools.

Librarians will even provide instructions to patrons on how to install the NewsGuard extension on their personal computers, tablets and cell phones.

Once you’ve installed the NewsGuard browser plugin on your computer or cellphone, the NewsGuard icon rating will appear on all Google and Bing searches and on articles featured in your social media news feeds:

These icons are meant to influence readers, instructing them to disregard content with cautionary colors and cautions. While the warnings may be enough to prevent someone from clicking these links, I believe the true intent will be to bury this content entirely from search results and social media feeds.

It is very likely GoogleFacebook, Twitter, and other platforms will use these ratings to lower the visibility of content — making nonconformist views disappear entirely.

NewsGuard’s Own Transparency Is Wanting

Fake news is certainly a problem. But determining who should have the final word on credibility and what is “truth” is not a simple one. Who is going to verify the credibility and transparency of the verifiers, i.e., NewsGuard?

It was hard to believe multibillion-dollar companies would rely on the likes of Snopes or Web of Trust to be the guardians of truth and credibility, and in fact, they didn’t. Over time, most people using the internet learned to disregard article and website ratings dispensed by either Snopes or Web of Trust.

But now, enter NewsGuard, which for all its promises to vet any and all independent online media for conflicts of interest, credibility, and transparency, apparently does not expect you to put them under that same scrutiny.

On NewsGuard’s the United States Securities and Exchange Commission Form D filed March 5, 2018, there is an option for disclosing the size of its revenue, but that box was checked, “Decline to disclose.”

Shouldn’t a corporation set itself up as the judge and validator of the transparency of others be 100 percent transparent as well? NewsGuard also claims a Rule 506(b) exemption, which among its benefits allows for an unlimited amount of money to be raised from an unlimited number of accredited investors.

Well, in doing some digging of our own, aside from internet giants Microsoft and Google — one of the largest monopolies in the world — it appears NewsGuard is backed by companies that are presently involved, or have been in the past, in advertising and marketing of pharmaceutical products, cigarettes and unhealthy junk food to kids.

Are we to believe that the profit preferences of such entities will have no influence on NewsGuard’s ratings of individuals, organizations, and companies that criticize the safety or effectiveness of those products?

NewsGuard and Microsoft are also partners in the Defending Democracy Program, a program aimed at safeguarding electoral processes by working with the government.

According to Microsoft’s April 2018 announcement, “The Defending Democracy Program will work with all stakeholders in democratic countries globally” to protect campaigns from hacking, increase transparency in political advertising, exploring technological solutions to protect electoral processes and remediate cyber threats, and ward against disinformation campaigns.

Overall, it appears NewsGuard is just another big business aimed at keeping the chemical, drug and food industries, as well as mainstream media, intact by discrediting and eliminating unwanted competition, which likely includes yours truly and many others who empower you with information that helps you take control of your health.

What You Need to Know About NewsGuard Backer, Publicis Groupe

NewsGuard’s $6 million startups was funded in part by the Publicis Groupe, the “third largest global communications group,” according to the Publicis website.

Publicis was founded in 1926 by Marcel Bleustein-Blanchet, a French entrepreneur, with the goal of improving the image of advertising and turning it into “a real profession.” In fact, Publicis Groupe’s name is derived in part from the French word for advertising.

The Publicis Groupe has been manipulating what people think about commercial products for nearly a century. Over that century, this advertising and communications firm bought or partnered with targeted advertising avenues, beginning with newspapers, followed by radio, TV, cinema and the internet.

With revenue avenues secured, Publicis’ clients and partners built a global presence that dominated the advertising world. Be it tobacco or junk food, Publicis Groupe found a way to promote and strengthen big industries.

Within the Publicis Groupe are four networks serving its clients, including Publicis Health, which boasts its clients are “some of the biggest and most exciting names in health and wellness.”

The wallpaper on the Publicis Health site shows Lilly, Abbot, Roche, Amgen, Genentech, Celgene, Gilead, Biogen, Astra Zeneca, Sanofi, and Bayer, to name a few of those clients.

The Publicis Health board also consists of a power pack of high-profile individuals with Big Pharma position backgrounds or affiliations.

Leo Burnett, the ad company famous for creating the Marlboro man ad campaigns that made Marlboro the best-selling cigarette in the world and led to the nicotine addiction of millions, many of whom died from smoking, is also part of Publicis.

If a company such as NewsGuard has such atrocious conflicts of interests, they should take their own advice and be transparent about their investors’ sources of income.

How can you trust a group associated with funders known for promoting cigarettes, drugs, and junk food?

The Fourth Estate

While pro-industry advertising worked well for decades, there was still the irksome problem of the Fourth Estate, a term that refers to the press.

The problem was that professional investigative journalists working for magazines, newspapers and broadcast outlets would write in-depth exposés, outing the truth behind deceptive advertising and countering industry propaganda with science, statistics and other documented facts — and when a free press with honest reporting based on verifiable facts actually does its job, ineffective or toxic products are driven off the market.

So, the answer that industry came up within the late 20th century to combat truth in journalism was, pure and simple: Control the Fourth Estate with advertising dollars. By partnering with the “big guns” of media, such as The Paley Center for Media, Publicis, and its industry clients were able to influence and, essentially, control the press to restrict or virtually eliminate your ability to ever hear the truth on many important issues, especially ones that affect your health.

The Paley Center, by the way, is composed of every major media in the world, including Microsoft, AOL, CBS, Fox, Tribune Media, and entertainment — and those are just a handful of the big-name media. One of The Paley Center’s activities is to sponsor an annual global forum for industry leaders.

NewsGuard, founded by journalists Steven Brill and Gordon Crovitz, is housed in The Paley Center in New York City and, on November 2015, Publicis’ chairman of North America, Susan Gianinno, joined the Paley Center’s board of trustees. Additionally, Brill’s and Crovitz’s former business partner in a different venture, Leo Hindery, was a prior trustee and director of The Paley Center, adding up to some fairly influential connections that NewsGuard has with the Center besides being a tenant in their building.

Publicis and Google are also partners, forming an interlocking triangle with NewsGuard. Publicis and Google joined forces with Condé Nast in 2014, creating the marketing service La Maison, “focused on producing engaging content for marketers in the luxury space.” Source

https://hnewswire.com/support-hnewswire-store/

The people spreading concrete information on the dangers of globalism are accomplishing far more than those sitting around buying bitcoin or passing around Q-cult nonsense.

StevieRay Hansen
Editor, HNewsWire.com

Let Me Make This Abundantly Clear. (I Am Apolitical) While I Have a General Distaste for Politicians No Matter the Party They Belong To, I Am Unashamedly Politically a Bible Believing Conservative Christian. I Have a Severe Distrust of Government. I Believe It Is the Most Inefficient and Ineffective Way to Accomplish Most Things. While I Strongly Disagree with Liberals/Progressives and Conservative on Most Political Issues, and While I Believe Liberals/Progressives and Most Politicians Are Terribly Misguided and Naive About What Big Government Will Eventually Result In, I Strive to Not Question Their Motives. at the Same Time, While I Find Myself in Agreement with Conservative Politicians on Some Issues, I Do Not Believe Electing Republicans Is the Answer to Everything. for Me, Very Sadly, the Main Difference Between Republicans and Democrats Is How Quickly They Want to Drive the Car Towards the Cliff. Simply put, I do not believe the government is the solution for everything. I do not place any faith, trust, or hope in any politicians to fix what is wrong with the world. “Come Lord Jesus!” (Revelation 22:20)

Education is useless without the bible (Daniel Webster)

Usually, the Lord doth no great thing for or against his people, without giving warning of it before it comes.

John Wesley who said that what we tolerate in our generation, will be embraced by the next. Wesley is 100% correct! We are living in sick times.

Evil Exists So Spiritual Warfare Becomes Necessary!

  1. Corinthians 4:8-11 New King James Version (NKJV)
  2. We are hard-pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; 9. persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed— 10. always carrying about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body. 11. For we who live are always delivered to death for Jesus’ sake, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh.

Satan has power over (LGBTQE-TRANS PEOPLE). The “sons of disobedience” referred to in Ephesians 2:2 are those who have not trusted Christ as Lord and Savior (cf. Acts 26:18; 2 Corinthians 4:4; Revelation 13:12). The demons are also under the rule of Satan (Matthew 12:24), and one of his titles is “prince of demons” (Matthew 9:34). Satan has a kingdom (Matthew 12:26) and a throne (Revelation 2:13). Satan is called a prince because he is a ruler and possesses the power to manifest evil in the world through influencing people and commanding demons.

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

HNewsWire- “All political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable.” Just look at some of our modern-day examples: torture is “enhanced interrogation techniques”; murder is “collateral damage”; the aggression initiation of war is a “pre-emptive strike”; the theft of taxpayers’ money is a “bailout”, and the theft of depositors’ money in a bank is a “haircut” or “bail-in”.In a blatant example of Newspeak, the New World Order controllers (through the psychiatric DSM V) have tried to rename pedophiles as “minor-attracted persons” and redefine pedophilia as “sexual orientation”. This makes no sense since sexual orientation has to do with gender, not age, with whether you are attracted to males or females, not how old they are. There are even organizations (like B4UAct.org) which are claiming that pedophiles are being unfairly stigmatized for their feelings!

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StevieRay Hansen

In his riveting memoir, "A Long Journey Home", StevieRay Hansen will lead you through his incredible journey from homeless kid to multimillionaire oilman willing to give a helping hand to other throwaway kids. Available on Amazon.

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