X (formerly Twitter) owner Elon Musk has slammed the European Union over its work with NewsGuard, an organization that is a significant component of the global internet censorship industry, calling the organization a “scam” that “ought to be disbanded.”
Musk turned his attention to NewsGuard following a post by former Trump administration official Mike Benz, exposing the European Commission’s relationship with NewsGuard, which helped revise the EU’s “code of practice on disinformation,” which calls on tech and advertising companies to financially throttle accused publishers of “disinformation.”
Elon, for your peripheral vision, Jimmy Wales advises NewsGuard, which is knee deep in a plot to get gov’ts to bankrupt alternative news.
NewsGuard worked w/ EU on new disinformation code. Its biz model has “disinformation compliance” services w/ censorship laws it promotes. https://t.co/NNiciemxu0 pic.twitter.com/QDz1a2qFVZ
— Mike Benz (@MikeBenzCyber) October 19, 2023
In response to this, Musk called on Thierry Breton, a leading member of the EU’s ruling European Commission, to offer an explanation to the people of Europe.
Is this true @ThierryBreton?
If so, the people of Europe deserve an explanation.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 19, 2023
“Is this true?” asked Musk. “If so, the people of Europe deserve an explanation.”
NewsGuard says Breitbart Store is “fake news” (Breitbart News/NewsGuard)
The European Union has aggressively used its power to advance the censorship of social media platforms, recently announcing a “disinformation” case against Meta (formerly Facebook) and TikTok, using new EU laws that can levy high fines on social media companies that don’t censor their platforms according to the bloc’s regulations.
In another post, Musk called NewsGuard a “scam” that “ought to be disbanded immediately.”
What a scam!
“Newsguard” should be disbanded immediately.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 19, 2023
Breitbart News has covered NewsGuard extensively, exposing the organization for its blacklist of media outlets, and the tendency of its leading figures and advisors to spread misinformation themselves.
NewsGuard has repeatedly undermined the credibility of conservative media, including Breitbart News and Fox News, while giving perfect ratings to establishment media outlets that repeatedly promoted giant falsehoods, including the notion that the Hunter Biden laptop story was Russian disinformation.
NewsGuard has sought partnerships with government bodies and professional associations, winning a $750,000 contract from the Pentagon in 2022, a decision that drew outrage from congressional Republicans.
Abokhari
Responding to Musk’s comments, NewsGuard general manager Matt Skibinski said that NewsGuard is not an instrument of government censorship, but an “alternative” to it.
“NewsGuard was created as an alternative to the black-box algorithms that decide which news content is promoted and which is not on big tech platforms—and as an alternative to any government censorship of content,” said Skibinski.
“We rate publishers using a publicly disclosed set of criteria, and we publicly publish the evidence and rationale behind our assessment of each publisher we rate—so that each reader can see our reasoning and decide for themselves how much to trust the source in question. We also provide every publisher a chance to respond to or rectify any issues we raise before publishing a rating and include their comments in the rating explanation we provide to users.”
“This transparent and accountable approach does not block users’ access to content, but instead empowers users to make their own decisions about their media diet.”
Allum Bokhari is the senior technology correspondent at Breitbart News. He is the author of #DELETED: Big Tech’s Battle to Erase the Trump Movement and Steal The Election.