Disturbing Truth About the 'Misinformation' Tracker Partnering with Big Tech Revealed
Misinformation, for as loaded of a term it can be in 2023, is a real problem.
While the left often likes to make “misinformation” a wholly conservative malaise, they are just as guilty of it as the right — if not more so.
Given that, an actual bipartisan effort to combat misinformation is, intrinsically, a wonderful idea.
What the world appears to be getting instead, however, is far from wonderful.
As Fortune noted, Microsoft and a group known as “The Trust Project” have put together a “misinformation” tracker that will purportedly help combat it.
You know Microsoft — the Bill Gates-founded tech titan that likes to spy on children and adopts asinine “green” policies. So already, this “misinformation” tracker isn’t off to the best start.
But what about the other part of this?
At its face, “The Trust Project” sounds great.
It effectively describes itself as a nonpartisan collection of news source that strives to provide “[t]ruthful, verified news and information in a context that gives them meaning” and a “[f]orums for civil exchanges and greater understanding of various viewpoints, with fairness in mind.”
“The Trust Project is an international consortium of news organizations building standards of transparency and working with technology platforms to affirm and amplify journalism’s commitment to transparency, accuracy, inclusion and fairness so that the public can make informed news choices,” the group said of itself.
Neat! How does it go about doing all this? By applying its “8 Trust Indicators” formula to news stories.
Those “indicators” are the following:
- Journalist Expertise: “Who made this?”
- Type of Work: “What is this?”
- Citations and References: “What is the source?”
- Methods: “Why was it a priority?”
- Locally Sourced: “Do they know the community?”
- Diverse Voices: “What are the newsroom’s efforts and commitments to bring in diverse perspectives across social and demographic differences?” (This really should have been the first major red flag about this organization’s ulterior intent.)
- Actionable Feedback: “What does the site do to engage your help in setting coverage priorities, asking good questions and finding the answers, holding powerful people and institutions accountable and ensuring accuracy?”
- Best Practices: “Who funds the site? What is its mission?”
That last bullet point is a key one, because, one would assume that “The Trust Project” would adhere to its own trust indicators and fully disclose the nature of its own funding.
One would assume wrong.
In fact, it wasn’t until the Washington Examiner began tugging at this thread that “The Trust Project” seemed to acknowledge where it got some of its key funding from.
According to tax records obtained by the Examiner, “The Trust Project” secured key funding from the New Venture Funds, “one of the largest left-leaning dark money groups in the United States.”
NVF purportedly helped steer over $3 million to “The Trust Project” between 2019 and 2021, so it’s not some negligible amount being donated.
Compounding matters, NVF is managed by Arabella Advisors, a group that Fox News described as a “firm overlooking America’s largest liberal dark money network,” as recently as late 2022.
Look. There’s just no way “The Trust Project” can possibly be presented as “bipartisan” or “fair” when it runs afoul of its own “Best Practices” maxim.
The group literally gets money from a group that, as Fox noted, has tendrils in so many avenues of life, it’s frankly kind of scary. Fox noted that Arabella even manages a group that “works with Biden admin on policy.”
Oh, and of course, Arabella Advisors have deep connections to billionaire Democrat megadonor George Soros, for however much mileage you may get out of that bit of information.
So if it looks like a leftist, talks like a leftist and gets money from leftists … it’s probably not nonpartisan.
It’s also worth noting that “Trust Project” CEO Sally Lehrman denied that her group’s financial ties to NVF would have any impact on its ability to remain nonpartisan in a statement to the Examiner.
In other words, Lehrman confirmed that there is a direct, tangible trail between “The Trust Project” and organizations with all sorts of leftist ties, including Soros.
Oh, and “The Trust Project” has also been funded by Facebook — not exactly a haven for conservatism.
For a group that is so entranced with nonpartisan news, they sure do take a lot of money from partisan sources and have no problem getting in bed with partisan groups.
Kind of brings their own “Best Practices” into question, doesn’t it?
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