June 24, 2023
C-VINE News was relieved and frankly elated that the House of Representatives actually stood up and passed a Bill preventing the Pentagon from funding rating agencies such as NewsGuard. It’s a beginning and will probably set a new precedent. But we shall see. In the meantime, we are providing the following report released yesterday by The Daily Caller that you can read HERE.
C-VINE has provided an opinion statement from our eye-witness investigation report at the end of this article article written by the Daily Caller….
House Committee Passes Rule Banning Pentagon From Funding ‘Censorship’ Orgs
(Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
MICAELA BURROWINVESTIGATIVE REPORTER, ~
The rule singles out the Global Disinformation Index (GDI), Graphika, NewsGuard and related organizations that target perceived online disinformation and rate news sources based on accuracy and transparency. United Kingdom-based GDI worked for the State Department while pushing to demonetize and deplatform conservative websites on various tech and social media platforms, raising concerns among activists and lawmakers that many so-called “fact checking” organizations may be biased in their judgements against right-leaning content.
“Proud to pass my amendment that prohibits the Department of Defense from contracting with any one of a number of “misinformation” or “disinformation” monitors that rate news and information sources,” Republican Rep. Rich McCormick of Georgia, who sponsored the amendment, said in a statement. “While these media monitors claim to be nonpartisan, the reality is they are not.” (RELATED: EXCLUSIVE: DHS Panel Courted Left-Wing Agents To Aid In ‘Misinformation’ Crackdown)
The amendment, adopted as part of the House Armed Services Committee’s 2024 National Defense Authorization Act passed early Thursday morning, blocks Pentagon funds from going to the Global Disinformation Index, Graphika, NewsGuard or “any other entity the function of which is to advise the censorship or blacklisting of news sources based on subjective criteria or political biases, under the stated function of ‘fact checking’ or otherwise removing ‘misinformation’” from the internet.
Advertising and marketing agencies the Department of Defense (DOD) employs to reach new recruits would have to certify they do not use any services from organizations, according to the text of the amendment.
DOD offered NewsGuard Technologies a contract in 2021 worth $749,387 for services relating to “misinformation fingerprints,” records show. U.S. Cyber Command and the State Department jointly ran a program for “detecting COVID-19 misinformation and disinformation” using NewsGuard’s “Misinformation Fingerprints” tool, which leveraged artificial intelligence to track prominent misinformation narratives online and “offer solutions to hoaxes related to the COVID-19 pandemic,” according to a news release.
“NewsGuard has provided the Department of Defense with alerts and analysis about new false narratives being spread by hostile foreign governments, including China, Russia and Iran, targeting Americans and our allies with false claims,” a spokesperson for the company told the DCNF. The spokesperson cited an example where NewsGuard identified a Beijing-backed website disseminating a false claim about a U.S. scheme to develop bioweapons and deploy them in China.
“We operate in an objective manner, including how we identify provably false claims and how we rate news sources by using fully transparent and apolitical criteria,” the spokesperson added.
The Institution for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) also received $80,000 in 2023 for “prevention,” although specifics of the program were not immediately available, records show. ISD is a U.K.-based nonprofit organization that partners with social media platforms to identify and combat what it calls online hate, extremism and disinformation.
However, it frequently labels mainstream conservative speech as hate or disinformation, evaluating content against narrowly-defined liberal perspectives on issues like abortion, climate change, transgenderism and Critical Race Theory, the Daily Caller News Foundation previously found. ISD has an active contract with the State Department to “advance the development of promising and innovative technologies against disinformation and propaganda.”
Wittman’s amendment blocks additional contracts in that vein.
The DCNF did not identify any current or inactive DOD contracts with GDI or Graphika, a company that monitors disinformation campaigns on social media and exposed a U.S. Central Command operation promoting pro-U.S. content on Twitter and Facebook.
ISD, NewsGuard, GDI and Graphika did not immediately respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.
~ End Daily Caller Report
C-VINE News Opinion: We have been rated annually by NewsGuard since September of 2020, which was 2 months before the Presidential Election. This rating from NewsGuard has caused us to be severely censored, shadowbanned, defunded and deplatformed. Essentially muzzling our voice and conducted right before the election. It didn’t matter how much proof, source, science, research or valid background proof we provided from our LICENSED volunteer investigators who weren’t paid. If the end result didn’t match the approved alphabet agency narrative, it was deemed misinformation. Even if it was voiced as an Opinion… discussing it was considered misleading in the minds of NewGuard agents.
The additional difficulty came from NewsGuard’s selective choices on who was repressed or censored. We have witnessed a very biased, two tiered rating system. It wasn’t just the censoring of the public, but also learned Physicians, Engineers, Architects, Licensed Building Contractors, Pilots, Professors and a multitude of others who were paid consultants, or research results from Accredited Universities… there could not be ANY deviation of the NewGuard narrative or final government alphabet agencies, without receiving very real repercussion of careers being ruined for life.
Imagine our deep dismay to find out that NewGuard was funded in part with a Grant by the Pentagon to the tune of $750,000 in 2021 for 2022. Especially since C-VINE volunteers had been closely monitoring the KSM et al 9/11 Commission Pre-trials LIVE Streamed via CCTV from GTMO and providing the government transcripts. Never ONCE did they call out the multitude of news agencies giving blatant false information about GTMO detaining celebrities or politicians. The Office of Military Commissions has clearly outlined regulations on who can be detained in Guantanamo Bay Military Prison and it is NOT, nor can it ever be an American Citizen. The Bill of Rights and the US Constitution is also quite explicit.
News Guard conveniently ignored this and has caused millions of people to be mislead through either gross negligence or willful misconduct. But, that will be discussed in another report.
We agree there should be some sort of rating system to help the public be aware of misinformation, but conducted fairly and without bias, trolls, or paid off government officials. In our opinion… places such as YELP or the Community Notes system that is similar to the Twitter model, works quite well.
That being said… we were relieved and frankly elated that the House of Representatives actually stood up and passed a Bill preventing the Pentagon from funding rating agencies such as NewsGuard. It’s a beginning and probably setting a new precedent. But we shall see. In the meantime, we are providing the following report released yesterday by The Daily Caller that you can read HERE.
~~~ Linda Forsythe