President-elect Donald Trump’s choice to lead the Federal Communications Commission is aiming at NewsGuard, which works to sideline and demonetize some conservative outlets and non-legacy media by labeling their news reports “misinformation.”
Brendan Carr, whom Mr. Trump nominated Sunday to chair the FCC next year, is calling on the four Big Tech giants to detail their use of NewsGuard and is threatening them with revocation of their federally granted immunity against content-based lawsuits.
“Over the past few years, Americans have lived through an unprecedented surge in censorship. Your companies played significant roles in this improper conduct,” Mr. Carr wrote to Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram. Apple, Microsoft and Google also received the letter.
Mr. Carr’s request for information about Big Tech’s use of NewsGuard carries significant weight. He is a Republican appointee to the five-member FCC, which oversees the liability shield law under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.
“This is the first salvo. We expect him to take a leadership role in reforming Section 230,” said Dan Schneider, vice president for free speech at the Media Research Center, a staunch critic of NewsGuard and other media monitoring firms.
Mr. Trump called Mr. Carr “a warrior for Free Speech” who has fought “the regulatory Lawfare that has stifled Americans’ Freedoms and held back our economy.”
Mr. Carr said Facebook, Google, Apple, Microsoft and other entities are part of a “censorship cartel” that he intends to dismantle.
The platforms work with NewsGuard and other so-called fact-checking groups and ad agencies that have starved some news outlets of revenue and visibility based on the ratings of the content they produce.
NewsGuard gave poor “grades” to outlets questioning the efficacy and safety of COVID-19 vaccines. Other sites were penalized for reporting on the COVID-19 lab leak theory, which is now widely deemed accurate.
Mr. Carr said the Big Tech platforms could lose their lawsuit liability shield if they are not acting in good faith.
“My letter goes to Big Tech’s continued reliance on NewsGuard given its track record,” Mr. Carr said.
The Washington Times sought comments from all four technology companies. Two did not immediately respond, and a Microsoft spokeswoman said company officials do not plan to comment.
Jose Castaneda said Google does not use NewsGuard services, “and our business model depends on connecting people to a wide range of perspectives and voices.”
Mr. Carr said NewsGuard’s uneven application of rankings has deemed Chinese Communist Party propaganda as more reliable than some American publications.
NewsGuard is an American company that gives clients “reliability ratings and scores” for news and information websites. Scores range from zero to 100 based on nine “apolitical journalistic criteria” that analyze credibility and transparency.
In a 627-word statement, NewsGuard CEO Gordon Crovitz said Mr. Carr’s letter “makes clear he was misled by relying on false reports” from outlets “that earn low credibility scores from NewsGuard.”
Mr. Crovitz said the company was founded in 2018 as an alternative to government censorship and social media “secret” algorithms that rank news sources.
“We take the opposite approach: We apply nine transparent and apolitical criteria for rating news websites, and our ratings are disclosed,” he said. “Our work does not involve any censorship or blocking of speech at all. Instead of blocking information, we provide users with apolitical reliability analysis. Instead of censorship, we provide users with more information — reliability ratings of news publishers based on apolitical criteria and a transparent journalistic process — so that each user can make informed decisions about which information to trust.”
In June, The Washington Post scored 100, NewsGuard’s highest reliability ranking. Fox News received a score of 69.5, and Breitbart received a score of 49.5.
When installed on internet browsers, NewsGuard warns readers and advertisers against clicking on websites that have been determined to violate journalism standards. The warnings have deprived lower-scoring sites of readership and ad revenue.
NewsGuard receives its analysis and rankings from a team of journalists led by Steven Brill and Mr. Crovitz, a former Wall Street Journal publisher.
“We help you decide which news sources to trust — with scores from humans, not algorithms,” the company website states.
In June, the House Oversight and Accountability Committee started investigating NewsGuard’s impact “on protected First Amendment speech and its potential to serve as a non-transparent agent of censorship campaigns.”
Committee Chairman James Comer, Kentucky Republican, listed several social media posts from NewsGuard senior adviser Richard Sambrook that suggested bias, including a repost of an article warning of “the global climate risks of another Trump term.”
Mr. Schneider said Mr. Carr’s role at the FCC will reinvigorate efforts to define the limits of Section 230, the legal liability shield protecting Big Tech platforms, which took effect during the first Trump administration.
“He understands that his job is going to be to restore First Amendment rights,” Mr. Schneider said.
• Susan Ferrechio can be reached at sferrechio@washingtontimes.com.
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