Matt Skibinski (NewsGuard)

Why We've Just Sued the Government Sharing A Statement from NewsGuard's Co-Founders About Our Fight for Freedom of Speech

This morning, @newsguard.bsky.social filed a lawsuit against the Federal Trade Commission for violating our rights under the First Amendment to publish apolitical reporting about false claims and the reliability of news sources. Here's why we did it:

www.newsguardrealitycheck.com/p/why-weve-j...

Russian Disinformation Campaign Targets Moldova’s Pro-EU President Ahead of Parliamentary Elections By Eva Maitland

As to why they're obsessing over us at @newsguard.bsky.social -- it seems this report from our team (link below) struck a nerve.

www.newsguardrealitycheck.com/p/russian-di...

'It was Terrifying,' Student Misidentified as FSU Shooter Tells NewsGuard PLUS: Kremlin Targets Moldova’s Pro-Europe President; Milwaukee Judge Smeared with AI Mugshots

Reporting about misinformation can often feel abstract and almost academic. But this story by our team @newsguard.bsky.social is a great reminder that there are often real people impacted by false claims that spread online. www.newsguardrealitycheck.com/p/it-was-ter...

Elon Musk’s 28 False Claims Get 825.2 Million Views From $50 million taxpayer dollars for condoms in Gaza to a 40% pay increase for Congress, Musk is correct that some of his claims are “incorrect”

The latest from our team @newsguard.bsky.social: Elon Musk’s false claims get 825.2 million views on X

www.newsguardrealitycheck.com/p/musks-28-f...

DeepSeek Debuts with 83 Percent ‘Fail Rate’ in NewsGuard’s Chatbot Red Team Audit The new Chinese AI tool finished 10th out of 11 industry players

For all the hype about DeepSeek, a NewsGuard audit found that the chatbot failed to provide accurate information in response to news prompts 83.33% of the time—and often repeated misinformation to users: www.newsguardrealitycheck.com/p/deepseek-d...

Wild Claims About L.A. Wildfires Get Millions of Views NewsGuard has identified and debunked 18 false claims related to the wildfires

Pro-Kremlin sources are citing a fabricated video claiming that eight Ukrainian military officials owned mansions in Southern California that were lost in the wildfires.

Read more in Reality Check: www.newsguardrealitycheck.com/i/154910460/...

You've probably never heard of John Mark Dougan, but our team at @newsguard.bsky.social has linked him to no fewer than 32 disinformation narratives and 171 websites masquerading as local news outlets this year.

That's why our team named him our "2024 Disinformer of the Year."

Opinion | Trump’s FCC and FTC Chairs Say I Run a Censorship ‘Cartel.’ Here’s the Truth. Journalists should be accountable to readers — not government censors.

"Newsmax and OANN have the right to criticize NewsGuard, and they exercise that right vehemently," writes @newsguard.bsky.social Co-CEO Steven Brill. "What they should not be able to do is enlist our government to help them."

www.politico.com/news/magazin...

Opinion | Trump’s FCC and FTC Chairs Say I Run a Censorship ‘Cartel.’ Here’s the Truth. Journalists should be accountable to readers — not government censors.

"Journalists should always be prepared and eager to defend their work to their reader," writes Steve Brill, Co-CEO of @newsguard.bsky.social. "But not to the government. Not in America."

www.politico.com/news/magazin...

This company rates news sites’ credibility. The right wants it stopped. NewsGuard, which prizes its nonpartisan criteria, has become a prime target of the GOP’s battle against disinformation watchdogs.

NewsGuard, backed by legal experts, argues that Carr’s letter may violate the First Amendment by threatening the speech rights of private companies.

“The only attempt to censor going on here is by Brendan Carr,” Crovitz said in an interview.

www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2...

Commentary: Newsmax misleads incoming Trump regulators, claiming ad boycott while investor pitch boasts of 228% ad sales growth from top brands Welcome to Reality Check, your inside look at how misinformation online is undermining trust — and who’s behind it.

Newsmax has been telling anyone who will listen that it is the victim of a widespread advertising boycott against conservatives. But its investor materials tell a different story, boasting of 228% revenue growth as "Top Advertisers Turn to Newsmax."

www.newsguardrealitycheck.com/p/commentary...

Conservative social media users are sharing a doctored press release to claim that Donald Trump and RFK Jr. ordered the arrest of a Dallas woman whom conspiracy theorists connect to the 1963 assassination of JFK.

Read it in Reality Check: www.newsguardrealitycheck.com/i/152839852/...

Flooding the Gap - Issue One Jamie Neikrie and Liana Keesing authored this report. Michael Beckel, Angelina Clapp, Alix Fraser, Abigail Gaetz, Oliver Ni, and Claire Woodall contributed to this report.

A new @issueonereform.bsky.social report using NewsGuard data reveals that foreign adversaries spread 160+ false narratives during the 2024 U.S. election. Russia, Iran & China played key roles, with false election-related stories spiking before Election Day.

Read it: issueone.org/articles/flo...

November 2024 AI Misinformation Monitor of Leading AI Chatbots - NewsGuard NewsGuard’s journalists spent 2023 rating and updating ratings for more than 35,000 news and information sources accounting for more than 95% of online engagement with news, cataloging more than 1,800...

🔹Multiple Chatbots Lacked Information on U.S. Presidential Election Results🔹

NewsGuard's November AI Misinformation Monitor examines the top 10 chatbots, including xAI's Grok and Google's Gemini.

Read our full report here: www.newsguardtech.com/special-repo...

Liberals falsely claim Trump’s plan to end birthright citizenship would strip his son Barron of citizenship, citing the fact that Barron’s mother, Melania, was not a U.S. citizen at the time of his birth.

Read about it in Reality Check: www.newsguardrealitycheck.com/i/152521917/...

Ski trip to Zelensky Mountain?

Yet another Russian disinfo claim alleging lavish purchases by Zelensky--the implication being that Western aid money is paying for such luxuries. Great coverage of this and more from my @newsguard.bsky.social colleagues: www.newsguardrealitycheck.com/p/no-donald-...

Incoming FCC Chairman Brendan Carr's beef with NewsGuard is legally dubious and empirically shaky Brendan Carr, President-elect Donald Trump's pick to chair the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), wants to "dismantle" what he calls "the censorship

I agree with @reason.com. @newsguard.bsky.social is a really thorough and fair service. I AM a person concerned with false claims of "disinformation", but Newsguard is the cure, not the disease. In fact I dedicated today's spiel to the topic open.spotify.com/episode/4Jzb...

Brendan Carr Makes It Clear That He’s Eager To Be America’s Top Censor When Donald Trump announced that he was appointing current FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr to be the next chair of the FCC, it was no surprise. Nor was it a surprise that Trump tried to play up that …

At long last, my stupidly long post on how Brendan Carr is aiming to be America's top censor.

www.techdirt.com/2024/11/27/b...

THE GIST | Mike Pesca Mike Pesca has established a seven-year connection to his audience as host of The Gist. For thirty minutes each day, Pesca challenges himself and his audience, in a responsibly provocative style, and ...

Mike Pesca praises NewsGuard’s apolitical work in The Gist:

“They do an honest job with the left and with the right.”

Listen to the full episode here: www.mikepesca.com/thegist/epis...

Commentary: FCC Commissioner Gets Hoodwinked About NewsGuard Welcome to Reality Check, your inside look at how misinformation online is undermining trust — and who’s behind it.

After the incoming FCC chair was apparently misled by Newsmax into threatening to punish NewsGuard for its speech, commentators across the political spectrum have pointed out that "the would-be censor here is the government official — not us."

www.newsguardrealitycheck.com/p/commentary...

In a new information age, news outlets are partnering with public libraries Dallas in particular is a hub for library-media collaborations.

"Credible news organizations and libraries are in the exact same business of empowering people with information." www.texasstandard.org/stories/news...

And here’s a response from NewsGuard to Carr’s claims about the company, its methodology, and product. It says Carr “was misled by relying on false reports” about NewsGuard.

Read: www.newsguardtech.com/wp-content/u...

There are now about as many AI-generated news sites as actual daily newspaper sites serving news to readers in the U.S. And the AI-generated news sites are multiplying rapidly.

NewsGuard’s reporting on AI misinformation was featured in @washingtonpost.com  

“Foreign influence actors used AI up to the closing hours of the election, spreading baseless allegations …  according to the misinformation tracking organization NewsGuard.”

www.washingtonpost.com/tech...

One interesting finding from our team @newsguard.bsky.social: AI models are awful at responding to news-related prompts. In our latest analysis, we found chatbots failed to provide accurate info on news topics 43% of the time, and often repeated misinformation. www.newsguardtech.com/special-repo...

Our team at @newsguard.bsky.social catalogs how AI content farms are having a field day with false claims about Elon Musk buying different companies.

Introducing the RFK Jr. Healthcare Claims Depository Plus: Russians Post Fake Trump-Putin AI Images to Celebrate Election; False Project 2025 Claims Surge; Iran Touts Fake Trump Quote

Worth a read: Our team at @newsguard.bsky.social has cataloged 92 different many false health claims made by Health and Human Services Secretary nominee RFK Jr. www.newsguardrealitycheck.com/p/introducin...