Microsoft Teams with Establishment ‘NewsGuard’ to Create News Blacklist
23 Jan 2019

Without consulting with its users, Microsoft has installed an establishment media browser extension, purportedly designed to rate the accuracy of news websites, as a default extension on mobile versions of its Edge browser. In practice, it creates a news blacklist by warning users away from sites including Breitbart News, The Drudge Report, and the Daily Mail.

The browser extension, called “Newsguard,” presents users with a red warning label if they navigate to a website that it judges to be unreliable. A “green” rating is given to websites that NewsGuard considers trustworthy.

A number of pro-Trump websites, including Breitbart News, are given a “red” rating by the extension.

The website of the conservative-leaning British newspaper The Daily Mail, which has the third-highest circulation in the U.K., is also given a “red” rating. Newsguard says the site “fails to maintain basic standards of accuracy and accountability.”

WikiLeaks, which has never had to retract a story due to false or misleading information, is also given a “red” rating.

Among the websites given a “green” rating is BuzzFeed, which was recently humiliated for publishing alleged details about the ongoing Mueller investigation that were contradicted by the speial prosecutor himself. BuzzFeed did not retract the story, and even led with it on its frontpage … after Mueller contradicted it.

But in Newsguard’s view, BuzzFeed “regularly corrects or clarifies errors.”

Many of the websites that recently fed the fake news feeding frenzy against students of Covington Catholic high school in Kentucky, who were falsely accused of taunting a left-wing Native American agitator, are also given a “green” rating. These include CNN, the New York Times, and the Washington Post.

Also “green” — Media Matters, the Clintonite Democrat website that regularly publishes hit-jobs against conservative media publications and personalities.

Rolling Stone, the magazine infamous for publishing a hoax rape allegation against members of a University of Virginia fraternity in 2015 is also given a “green” rating. Newsguard says the outlet has “consistently published well-researched, factual information about contemporary American culture.”

Some left-wing sources are given “red” ratings by Newsguard. However, they tend to be on the anti-establishment side of Democratic politics: ShareBlue and the Daily Kos, for example, both have “red” ratings. Salon and the Huffington Post, however, do not.

It shouldn’t be surprising that Newsguard has a bias against independent and anti-establishment media though: the team behind the browser extension include top neocons and members of America’s foreign policy establishment, including Trump-hating former CIA director Michael Hayden, and former members of the Clinton, Bush, and Obama administrations.

Update — Microsoft replied to Breitbart News with the following statement:

“Microsoft is partnering with NewsGuard to offer the NewsGuard browser extension on Microsoft Edge, and a feature in Microsoft Edge mobile apps for iOS and Android to help our customers evaluate news sources. Across both the browser and the apps, NewsGuard is optional and customers need to take action if they want to use the feature.” – a Microsoft spokesperson

https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2019/01/2...news-blacklist/

NewsGuard’s Advisory Board Has History of Fake News, Unethical Journalism
25 Jan 2019

NewsGuard, an anti-“fake news” service built into Microsoft’s Edge mobile browser, has an advisory board with a history of spreading inaccurate information, conspiracy theories, and engaging in unethical journalism.

Four out of seven of the members on the advisory board are alumni from the presidential administrations of George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama.

NewsGuard’s advisory board currently consists of:

Zitat

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What saddens and angers me about this whole episode is the realization that we will reap the toxic harvest of Trumpism for generations and the children of these boys will be susceptible to the same narrow-minded authoritarian messages their fathers were. https://t.co/g8mI2Trxc6

— Richard Stengel (@stengel) January 20, 2019

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Several users on Twitter implored Stengel to watch the full video, while one declared, “Way to perpetuate the lie.”

General Michael Hayden

General Michael Hayden is an avid promoter of the Russia collusion conspiracy theory, and has promoted the infamous Steele Dossier, which, among other things, claimed President Trump paid Russian prostitutes to urinate in front of him.

“He actually admires the way Putin does business. He — you know, in his heart of hearts, he may look at what happened yesterday in the Russian Federation and have a certain sense, why can’t I give speeches like that?” claimed Hayden while discussing President Trump last year. “Why can’t I do those kinds of things? I think there is a bit of autocrat envy, in terms of the president’s attitudes towards the President of the Russian Federation.”

In June, Hayden faced criticism for comparing President Trump’s enforcement of border protection to the Holocaust.

Zitat

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Other governments have separated mothers and children pic.twitter.com/tvlBkGjT0h

— Gen Michael Hayden (@GenMhayden) June 16, 2018

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The comparison was described by many as “obscene and offensive,” “disgraceful,” and “despicable,” while BlazeTV’s Jordan Schachtel likened the comment to dancing on the graves of Holocaust victims.

In 2017, Hayden claimed Breitbart News and other conservative news outlets have an “illegitimate worldview,” and a “non-fact-based worldview.”

Jessica Lessin

Lessin, in 2016, faced heavy criticism for unethical journalism after she “defended Facebook” in an article “from calls that it should fact-check the news as a way of combating fake stories,” without disclosing her and her husband’s deep connections to the social network and its CEO Mark Zuckerberg — who reportedly even attended their wedding.

“What neither Lessin nor The Times’s opinion editors told readers is that Lessin and her husband, Sam, have close ties to Facebook and its founder, Mark Zuckerberg. Sam Lessin is a long-time friend of Zuckerberg since their days at Harvard,” reported New York Times Public Editor Liz Spayd. “When young Zuckerberg was shopping for money to start his business, Sam took him around to meet investors. When Sam had a business of his own, Zuckerberg bought it, and then Sam went to work at Facebook.”

“He became the social media giant’s vice president overseeing product, and one of a handful of top executives who reported directly to Zuckerberg,” Spayd continued. “The Facebook founder was even reported to be in the wedding party when Sam and Jessica got married.”

As reported on Wednesday by Breitbart Tech Senior Reporter Allum Bokhari, “Microsoft has installed an establishment media browser extension, purportedly designed to rate the accuracy of news websites, as a default extension on mobile versions of its Edge browser.”

“In practice, it creates a news blacklist by warning users away from sites including Breitbart News, The Drudge Report, and the Daily Mail,” Bokhari explained, adding that WikiLeaks is also on the blacklist, despite the fact that WikiLeaks “has never had to retract a story due to false or misleading information.”

https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2019/01/2...cal-journalism/