Former WSJ Publisher Censors News Websites With Nutrition Labels

From Politico.com:

Labeling through extensive disclosure is more practical on the internet than in print or through broadcasts, where space is limited. Disclosures online can be detailed enough to give readers all the information they need to decide how trustworthy to consider a source. My analyst colleagues at NewsGuard often write “Nutrition Labels” for news sites in the thousands of words, with numerous citations, to explain why sites like RT and Sputnik News fail basic criteria of journalistic practice and differ fundamentally from government news sources with effective independent charters such as the BBC. Microsoft makes NewsGuard’s detailed ratings and reviews of news websites available to its users, but the other large platforms don’t yet provide this kind of transparency to their users. And labels work: Gallup research found that when given access to apolitical source ratings, a majority of readers became less likely to believe or share news from websites rated untrustworthy and more likely to believe and share news from websites rated trustworthy.”

Yet another example of the pervasive censorship and distortion that plagues the so-called free press.

Lower ratings will automatically be slapped on unpopular political positions, even those voiced by completely marginal internet blogs and websites, the last remaining strong-holds of pure truth-telling. The lower ratings will translate into lower rankings by the search engines and that will lead to a precipitous drop in readership. Wrong-think will not simply be devalued. It will be silenced.

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