Yesterday’s BFD posts include one written by Cam Slater which begins:
“Have you ever heard of Newsguard? Nah? Neither had we until we received an e-mail from Amina McCauley [also here], an intern at Newsguard, demanding we comply with their demands. They wanted answers and they wanted them now!
“Who is Newsguard? Well, it seems they are the new censors on the block [first appearing in this part of the world a few months ago] and boy are they wielding big sticks.”
It would seem that this business is in the business of news censorship on behalf of corporate clients — Big Pharma among them — and that’s fine in itself, a free media can cope with that; the sinister aspect comes when governments get involved, too.
Cam Slater says: ‘They will be working hand in glove with other censorious organisations like The Disinformation Project, and the Department of Internal Affairs which is looking to establish a regulatory regime over all online media in New Zealand.”
He is probably right. Our recommendation to the BFD and anyone else who gets such an e-mail is simply to ignore Newsguard.