The federal government is finally getting a taste of its own medicine in court, with it and NewsGuard Technologies Inc., a for-profit entity dedicated to combating “misinformation,” facing the music for allegedly violating the First Amendment.
The publishers of the foreign policy news website Consortium News filed a lawsuit against the left-wing media fact-checker NewsGuard Technologies, Inc. and the U.S. government on Monday in New York federal court, claiming First Amendment violations. https://t.co/e0tYF0yrkE
— NEWSMAX (@NEWSMAX) October 24, 2023
It’s about time the federal government faces some repercussions for its constant indicting and persecution of conservatives.
The Consortium for Independent Journalists filed the lawsuit in the Southern District of New York, as reported by Just The News.
The group that filed the lawsuit publishes Consortium News, whose founder, Robert Perry, says he began to serve as an alternative to the “groupthink” of the mainstream media. Notably, Perry is a journalist for the Associated Press (AP).
The lawsuit alleges that the federal government and NewsGuard “engaged in a pattern and practice of labeling, stigmatizing and defaming American media organizations that oppose or dissent from American foreign and defense policy, particularly as to Russia and Ukraine.”
The lawsuit further alleges that the U.S.’s efforts, alongside NewsGuards’, were executed through “a contract between NewsGuard’s ‘Misinformation Fingerprints’ program and the Department of Defense Cyber Command, an element of the Intelligence Community.”
Specifically, the lawsuit states that media organizations who choose to challenge or go against U.S. foreign and defense policy as it relates to the Russia-Ukraine war, are “reported to the government by NewsGuard and labeled as ‘anti-U.S.,’ purveyors of Russian ‘misinformation’ and propaganda, publishing ‘false content’ and failing to meet journalistic standards.”
Just The News reported that NewsGuard has labeled six articles pertaining to Consortium News as having “misinformation.” Such a term, according to the lawsuit, only appears when a user accesses any of the outlet’s 20,000-plus articles located in archives, “thereby defaming the entirety of the news organization’s output.”
Interestingly, since its founding in 2018, Consortium News has never been contacted by NewsGuard regarding any published articles containing “misinformation.” The for-profit organization first contacted the outlet in March 2022, after NewsGuard signed a contract with the U.S. Department of Defense Cyber Command.
The “misinformation” allegation by NewsGuard focused on articles published on Consortium News about the Russia-Ukraine war, labeled as “myths.”
Such a development comes after Elon Musk denounced NewsGuard and called for it to be “disbanded.’ Musk’s concerns were shared by various conservative organizations who alleged that NewsGuard is a blatantly bias company that punishes those it disagrees with.
