NewsGuard Gives “Green” Rating to Hoax by Rolling Stone, “Red” to Critics

Newsguard Gives

(UnitedHeadlines.com) – The Internet allows us to communicate instantly with friends and family from around the world. However, it can also be a dark place filled with malicious people who seek to do others harm. Misinformation and disinformation are all too common online — and anybody willing to believe it may find themselves in trouble.

NewsGuard is a browser extension that rates the credibility of websites and the information they contain while also tracking misinformation. Its extension is essentially a fact-checker that claims to fight untrustworthy sites and media outlets. Yet, it continues to give the Rolling Stone, which has fallen for hoaxes more than a few times, a green badge of approval.

NewsGuard preserved Rolling Stone’s credibility even after the site published a story about an Oklahoma doctor who claimed hospitals were overflowing due to people using ivermectin and overdosing.

Fact-checkers later debunked the story. However, that didn’t stop MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, The Hill and The BBC from publishing it too. All of these media outlets continue to receive green badges.

Other sources, such as The Epoch Time, Breitbart News, and TownHall, all receive red badges of disapproval, meaning they’re untrustworthy sites. How is it that some outlets can continuously publish misinformation but still be trustworthy? Are NewsGuard and other fact-checking sites really any better than the sources they rank?

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