A New Neocon-Backed Narrative Control Firm Works To Destroy Alternative Media
A report seeded throughout the mainstream media by anonymous intelligence officials back in September claimed that US government workers in Cuba had suffered concussion-like brain damage after hearing strange noises in homes and hotels with the most likely culprit being “sophisticated microwaves or another type of electromagnetic weapon” from Russia. A recording of one such highly sophisticated attack was analyzed by scientists and turned out to be the mating call of the male indies short-tailed cricket. Neurologists and other brain specialists have challenged the claim that any US government workers suffered any neurological damage of any kind, saying test results on the alleged victims were misinterpreted. The actual story, when stripped of hyperventilating Russia panic, is that some government workers heard some crickets in Cuba.
Another report which dominated news headlines all of yesterday claimed that former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort (the same Paul Manafort who the Guardian falsely claimed met with Julian Assange in the Ecuadorian embassy) had shared polling data with a Russian associate and asked him to pass it along to Oleg Deripaska, who is often labeled a “Russian oligarch” by western media. The polling data was mostly public already, and the rest was just more polling information shared in the spring of 2016, but Deripaska’s involvement had Russiagaters burning the midnight oil with breathless excitement. Talking Points Memo’s Josh Marshall went so far as to publish an article titled “The ‘Collusion’ Debate Ended Last Night”, substantiating his click-generating headline with the claim that “What’s crystal clear is that the transfer to Kilimnik came with explicit instructions to give the information to Deripaska. And that’s enough.”
Except Manafort didn’t give any explicit instructions to share the polling data with Deripaska, but with two Ukrainian oligarchs (who are denying it).
The New York Times was forced to print this embarrassing correction to the story it broke, adding in the process that Manafort’s motivation was likely not collusion, but money.
Imagine, then, how disastrous it would be if these last strongholds of skepticism and holding power to account were removed from the media landscape. Well, that’s exactly what a shady organization called NewsGuard is trying to do, with some success already.
A new report by journalist Whitney Webb for MintPress News details how NewsGuard is working to hide and demonetize alternative media outlets like MintPress, marketing itself directly to tech companies, social media platforms, libraries and schools. NewsGuard is led by some of the most virulently pro-imperialist individuals in America, and its agenda to shore up narrative control for the ruling power establishment is clear.
1. The company has created a service called BrandGuard, billed 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.” Popularizing the use of this service will attack the advertising revenue of unapproved alternative media outlets which run ads. NewsGuard is aggressively marketing this service to “ad tech firms, leading agencies, and major advertisers”.
2. NewsGuard’s advisory board reads like the fellowships list of a neocon think tank, and indeed one of its CEOs, Louis Gordon Crovitz, is a Council on Foreign Relations member who has worked with the American Enterprise Institute and Heritage Foundation. Members of the advisory board include George W Bush’s Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge, deep intelligence community insider Michael Hayden, and the Obama administration’s Richard Stengel, who once publicly supported the need for domestic propaganda in the US. All of these men have appeared in influential think tanks geared toward putting a public smiley face on sociopathic warmongering agendas.
4. NewsGuard is also planning to get its news-ranking system integrated into social media outlets like Facebook and Twitter, pursuing a partnership which will make pro-establishment media consumption a part of your experience at those sites regardless of whether or not you download a NewsGuard app or plugin.
5. NewsGuard markets itself to state governments in order to get its plugin installed in all of that state’s public schools and libraries to keep internet users from consuming unauthorized narratives. It has already succeeded in accomplishing this in the state of Hawaii, with all of its library branches now running the NewsGuard plugin.
新的應用輭件 ‘NewsGuard’ 承諾阻止虛假新聞，看一看誰人擁有和資助它
New App ‘NewsGuard’ Promises To Stop Fake News. Have A Look At Who Owns & Funds It
The Facts:News browser extension NewsGuard promises to help readers pick out fake news. However, NewsGuard is funded and run by individuals tied to the CFR, Atlantic Council and other prominent elite figures.
Reflect On:Are we seeing a push for over-governance when it comes to even basic things like news and information? Is it time we take responsibility for our lives? Are we seeing a desperate elite losing even more control over the narrative within the media?
A new browser extension app called NewsGuard promises to give readers better insight into the credibility of news sites by providing them with a red, yellow or green badge as visitors explore content. All you have to do is install it on your website browser and you will find out how websites are rated based on numerous categories. You will also see a ‘Nutrition Label’ that was developed by NewsGuard’s ‘watchdog SWAT team’ so readers can understand whether or not a site is trustworthy… well, that’s what NewsGuard claims.
This seems similar to Facebook’s attempt to stop ‘fake news’ by working with websites like Snopes who generally use mainstream media stories to ‘debunk’ alternative viewpoints that are presented on independent media websites. Ironically, Snopes has a perfect rating from NewsGuard.
NewsGuard (NewsGuard Technologies) describes themselves as a news rating agency, but if you look closer at their ownership, board of directors, and current ratings of websites, you get a very different picture as to what the purpose of NewsGuard truly is.
According to its website, NewsGuard has already rated more than 2,000 news and information websites. Future plans include further rankings as well as 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.
Before we delve into the more important details of what’s going on here, let’s ask the big question…
Is Fake News A Problem?
https://www.collective-evolution.com/2019/01/11/new-app-newsguard-promises-to-stop-fake-news-have-a-look-at-who-owns-funds-it/
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