NewsGuard’s Fight Against Censorship
Learn how NewsGuard is pushing back against censorship threats and defamation lawsuits from the extremes on both sides of the political aisle.
NewsGuard does not censor, block, taken down, suppress, shadow ban, or otherwise limit the spread of any content — period. We were founded in 2018 as a private-sector alternative to the secret algorithms of the Silicon Valley digital platforms and to government censorship. We strongly oppose censorship. Our work instead gives consumers more information, rather than restricting their access to information.
We are a team of journalists who provide more information to users about the reliability of information they encounter online, such as our recent report finding that Russian propaganda networks have infected Western AI tools with Kremlin disinformation and propaganda, which was cited by outlets across the political spectrum.
That, however, has not stopped sites like OAN and Newsmax that get low trust scores from NewsGuard from attempting to poison our reputation by publishing false claims about us and lobbying their allies in Congress and regulatory agencies to censor our work.
You can find on this page our response to a hostile Senate subcommittee and to the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission. We have also included the opinion in the federal district court dismissing a lawsuit brought by a left-wing website that tried to take away NewsGuard’s free speech right to rate news websites. We have also collected commentary on these efforts to censor us.
April 14, 2025
“We find it ironic that sites like Newsmax report falsely about us, misleading government officials into threatening us, then call us censors, even though we’re First Amendment absolutists.” – NewsGuard Co-CEO Gordon Crovitz
In the media: Our fight against censorship
Read The Washington Post, “This company rates news sites’ credibility. The right wants it stopped.”
Read Deadline, “Attacking The Watchdog: How Media Rating Site NewsGuard Ended Up As A Target For GOP Lawmakers And Regulators.”
Listen to Two Think Minimum, “Future of News Ratings and Media Trust with NewsGuard CEO Gordon Crovitz.”
NewsGuard’s response to a hostile Senate Judiciary subcommittee investigation
“We are a private sector company with zero U.S. government funding, despite your letter’s claim. Our entire business is producing—not blocking—speech. As such, it would be impossible for us to violate the First Amendment, as your letter suggests. Our work is instead speech protected by the First Amendment, and your letter’s demand that we justify our constitutionally protected speech to a government committee is itself censorious. In America, no journalism organization should ever face a government inquest into whether or not it has engaged in ‘biased’ speech.”
See full response.
NewsGuard’s initial statement in response to Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr’s false claims
Every key claim in Carr’s letter to technology companies about NewsGuard is false: Contrary to the accusations, NewsGuard does not censor and is apolitical. Carr was misled by the main source he cites in his letter, Newsmax, which has a NewsGuard Trust Score of 20/100.
Read NewsGuard's full statement on the letter.
NewsGuard’s letter to FCC Chairman Carr
NewsGuard sent a letter to Commissioner Brendan Carr on Dec. 10, 2024 via email.
NewsGuard’s media advisory on alerts to Carr’s censorship
Media and free-speech defenders raise alarm about Carr’s efforts to censor NewsGuard.
Magazines, podcasts and free-speech advocates accuse Carr of censorship
Incoming FCC Chairman Brendan Carr is accused of censorship in various pieces published in Reason, Techdirt., The Gist podcast and FIRE.
Joe Lancaster, Reason Magazine: “How the FCC's 'Warrior for Free Speech' Became Our Censor in Chief”
Jacob Sullum, Reason Magazine: “First Amendment: Incoming FCC Chairman Brendan Carr's Beef with NewsGuard Is Legally Dubious and Empirically Shaky”
Mike Masnick, Techdirt: “Brendan Carr Makes It Clear That He’s Eager to Be America’s Top Censor”
Mike Pesca, The Gist Podcast: “Best of the Gist: NewsGuard Edition”
Ari Cohn, FIRE: “Commissioner, Regulate Thyself: The Incoming FCC Chair Is Threatening to Censor Views He Doesn't Like”
NewsGuard Reality Check Commentary: “FCC Commissioner Gets Hoodwinked About NewsGuard”
So to Speak: The Free Speech Podcast Ep. 236 “JD Vance, 60 Minutes, The Associated Press, the FCC, and more,” minutes 49-52.
Irony: Carr supported NewsGuard-focused reform in his “Project 2025” chapter
NewsGuard is cited as the leading solution for the reform Brendan Carr proposed in his "Project 2025" chapter in the section entitled “Support efforts to empower consumers." Carr wrote, “One idea is to empower consumers to choose their own content filters and fact checkers, if any.”
Political scientist Francis Fukuyama calls this approach a “middleware solution.” Fukuyama cites NewsGuard ratings giving readers information about sources online as the leading way to empower consumers. “NewsGuard is an example that we would like to see more of,” Fukuyama said. “Consumers should have a choice among a variety of middleware options rather than leaving it all up to the internet platforms.”
Federal court upholds NewsGuard’s First Amendment right to rate news websites in Consortium News v. NewsGuard
A federal judge dismissed with prejudice a lawsuit brought by Consortium News against NewsGuard, which disputed its low rating.
Excerpts:
“Put simply, the … Complaint lacks sufficient allegations that the Government controlled NewsGuard’s decision-making process and internal operations; accordingly, Plaintiff’s First Amendment claim against NewsGuard fails as a matter of law …”
“[T]he Court finds that the challenged statements are non-actionable expressions of opinion, which Plaintiff does not plausibly allege to be false.”
Read the full legal opinion here.
Media coverage of Consortium News v. NewsGuard
Ted Johnson, Deadline: “Judge Tosses Out Defamation Lawsuit Against Media Ratings Site NewsGuard”
Bron Maher, Press Gazette: “NewsGuard wins free speech ruling in battle with Roger Waters-backed publisher”
Bernie Pazanowski, Bloomberg Law: “US, NewsGuard Avoid Consortium News' Trustworthiness Rating Suit”
Why apolitical ratings of news publishers are needed
Read opinion pieces in The Washington Examiner from NewsGuard co-CEO Gordon Crovitz.
2/13/2023: “Only Transparent, Apolitical Ratings for News Publishers Can Be Trusted”
7/19/2024 “Advertisers Fear Supporting Journalism, Here’s How to Fix That”
Testimonials from conservative and libertarian news publishers
Reports in Reason magazine and the UnHerd and Spiked websites contrast NewsGuard’s apolitical ratings with the partisan ratings they received from the left-wing advocacy group, Global Disinformation Index.
Reason Magazine:
Jacob Sullum, “The Perils of Trying To Curtail Hazily Defined 'Disinformation'“:
"NewsGuard, a service that rates adherence to basic principles of good journalism, gives this website its highest possible score. Yet the Global Disinformation Index (GDI), a British organization that aims to steer advertisers away from disreputable websites, claims Reason is one of the 10 "riskiest" online news sources in the United States."
Robby Soave, “U.S. State Department Funds a Disinformation Index That Warns Advertisers To Avoid Reason”
"If a self-described disinformation-tracking organization [Global Disinformation Index] wants to loudly proclaim, in partisan fashion, that advertisers should only use mainstream and liberal news sites, it has that right. But advertisers should take note of its obvious bias, total lack of transparency in detailing media outlets' scores, and other methodological issues. When evaluated by a misinformation-tracking organization that uses transparent and objective metrics, Reason fares much better. NewsGuard—an evaluator co-founded by Gordon Crovitz, former publisher of The Wall Street Journal—gives Reason a perfect score of 100/100 and does not steer advertisers away."
UnHerd
Editor-in-Chief of UnHeard, Freddie Sayers, “How ‘fighting disinformation’ turns into political censorship”
"I can attest that UnHerd has been substantially affected: Though NewsGuard, another disinformation ratings organization, gives us a trust score of 92.5 percent (five points ahead of the New York Times), the GDI at some point last year mysteriously placed us on their “dynamic exclusion list” of publications that supposedly promote disinformation and should be boycotted by advertisers."
Spiked
Tom Slater, “The spiked Christmas give-a-thon”
"Dodgy ‘anti-disinformation’ organizations such as the Global Disinformation Index are effectively telling advertising firms not to work with sites like spiked. This is despite us being a reputable, decades-old publication with high journalistic standards. For what it’s worth, we have a 100 per cent score on NewsGuard, another big news-rating system. (The New York Times only has an 87.5 rating there.)"
The problem in the programmatic advertising industry that NewsGuard solves
Helping advertisers place their ads is a multi-billion-dollar industry. NewsGuard helps place publishers — conservative and liberal — on “inclusion lists” to generate more ad revenues, while helping brands avoid supporting Russian disinformation, healthcare hoaxes and conspiracy sites.
Read this excerpt from NewsGuard Co-CEO Steven Brill’s book, “The Death of Truth,” explaining why services like NewsGuard are needed in the programmatic ad market.
Recommend NewsGuard's Reality Check to your readers
A report on how misinformation online is undermining trust—and who’s behind it. Produced by co-CEOs Steven Brill, Gordon Crovitz, and the NewsGuard Team.