Musk Lashes Out Against NewsGuard Censorship

Musk criticized NewsGuard for censoring content, and called for the EU to clarify its ties with the organization.

Entrepreneur Elon Musk has called the content moderator NewsGuard a “scam” and demanded that it be “disbanded immediately” over claims that it suppresses speech that doesn’t align with the moderator’s political stances. Mr. Musk also has questioned the European Union over its alleged association with NewsGuard.

On Oct. 19, Trump administration official Mike Benz wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter: “[NewsGuard] is knee deep in a plot to get [governments] to bankrupt alternative news. NewsGuard worked [with the] EU on new disinformation code. Its biz model has ‘disinformation compliance’ services [with the] censorship laws it promotes.”

The EU’s “2022 Code of Practice on Disinformation” calls on tech companies and ad firms to financially choke publishers identified as spreading content deemed to be “disinformation.” In response to Mr. Benz’s post, Mr. Musk said: “Is this true [Thierry Breton]? If so, the people of Europe deserve an explanation.” Mr. Breton is the European commissioner for the European Union’s Internal Market.

In an Oct. 19 post on X, Tim Pool, a political commentator and podcast host, revealed that NewsGuard gave his company a strike because it “ran 5 stories out of nearly 5,000 that quoted [former President Donald] Trump.”

“They claimed that reporting on Trump’s statements was irresponsible because we should be fact checking him instead and Trump was wrong. They now claim we [don’t] correct errors because we [didn’t] respond to their false claims last month,” he said.

Mr. Musk replied to the post: “What a scam! ‘Newsguard’ should be disbanded immediately.”

Founded in 2018, NewsGuard claims to rate online content for trustworthiness, insisting that it’s objective and nonpartisan.

However, an investigation from The Epoch Times in August showed that NewsGuard’s measure of media quality depended on whether content was in line with the organization’s opinions.

Mr. Musk has been facing increasing pressure from the EU regarding the moderation of X.

By Naveen Athrappully

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