NewsGuard, a company that provides a rating system for sites that can then facilitate flagging “misinformation,” is reported to have in the past been recommended to its members by the now disbanded Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM) – as they allegedly banded together to demonetize social platforms and some news sites.
In November, member of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Brendan Carr – who President-elect Donald Trump has nominated to head the agency – sent a letter to major tech companies, asking for information about their work with NewsGuard.
The company, set up in 2018, is now accusing Carr of potentially violating the First Amendment by posing these questions, and claims that its work “does not involve censorship.”
However, that can be seen as a technicality, given that its browser add-ons that rate sites for “credibility” provide a tool for those who do end up carrying out censorship, which was the focus of Carr’s interest in the role of NewsGuard in the broader “censorship cartel.”
NewsGuard responded to Carr’s letter with its own in early December, stating the company was “surprised” to learn about the commissioner’s inquiries from the media.
It might appear unclear why this would be surprising, but NewsGuard’s co-CEOs quickly explain the “surprise” was caused by Newsmax reporting about Carr’s letter exclusively, and Carr citing reporting by this conservative outlet as a source.
NewsGuard, meanwhile, said it rates Newsmax “in the bottom 15% of over 10,000 websites.”
Exactly – NewsGuard’s detractors might say.
The “reliability and credibility rater” then pivots to position itself as “apolitical and transparent” compared to Meta and Alphabet, which the NewsGuard noted have their own rating systems.
The tech giants are using “non-transparent criteria, understandably making conservatives and other publishers skeptical,” the NewsGuard letter states.
In trying to explain why looking into its activities might violate the First Amendment, NewsGuard’s work is defined by some advocates as “offering opinions” regarding which site is credible and to what degree – and that this represents speech.
But since NewsGuard’s “opinions” are suspected to have been used by the likes of GARM to try to get advertisers to boycott sites and platforms, the company’s role in the big picture became of interest to Carr.
As for the company’s reaction, the commissioner had this to say, as reported by the Washington Post:
“NewsGuard’s response and its conduct since I raised these issues a few weeks back has only heightened and underscored my concerns… NewsGuard’s response is a jumble of disinformation, deception, and sleight of hand. In other words, it mirrors NewsGuard’s business model, in my opinion.”
