Reviews & Comments of NewsGuard chrome extension

Biased ratings.

Transparent ratings.

Not as unbiased as they claim to be; they willingly turn a blind eye to some right-wing outlets: https://checkmyads.org/branded/how-newsguard-boosts-the-american-disinformation-economy/

It is a fraud. Does not tell that is requires subscription until after install. Waste of time.

Legitimizes dis/misinformation. Worse than useless, it's harmful

absolute garbage

Unreliable ratings. Clearly a compromised service/organization.

Two big issues. --- 1. It has a subscribtion mode with 2 weeks trial. 2. USAToday is still 100/100 after they have fabricated at least 23 news outlets. This is just corporate shilling.

NewsGuard editors are shills and hacks; they lie, and work towards making publishers look as poorly as possible. They lied about my news company I sold calling it "defunct" just because I am no longer there anymore trying to make me look bad when it remains a living thriving media business. I told them they should correct it twice, two years in a row... They do not care about accuracy, only their agenda. App is worthless. Red should signal what to believe and green should signal sites to avoid. Totally unreliable.

Garbage, have to pay a subscription.

Seems that this doesn't work without a subscription.

Yeah this is bias, I've seen many stories that ended up being fake news or lies from certain stories and they are rated to no lie in their articles. Yeah this is just a tool to manipulate you into thinking a fake story is true.

Absurdly biased toward the left. Its working but in reverse. I know not to trust the green checks. This app is reported in Breaking The News book as even having red flagged breitbart merch shop; and identical transcripts on right wing sites will flag red while leftwing are green.

Garbage Left-Wing company that pretends to be neutral. Currently acting like a Digital Democratic Hit Man.

Useless.

Use this with Microsoft Edge browser if you want to use it completely free. Apart from marking many reputable conservative news as well as well known info leakers like wikileaks, and veritas sources as dangerous or proceed with caution it's a decent app. It still has a strong bias to the left, they ignore the huge amount of misinformation made by CNN, MSNBC and many others left-wing sources. As well as strive to make an unbiased algorithm that scans all if not most of the articles on the website and cross references it with known or the truth of the events and mark them as such. This would be a better approached to using biased humans to rate the channels. This app should also show what is the political leanings using the articles written as well. Some news sites may be missing from the rating system and some may have an obviously false mark like that of CNN, Buzzfeed (really?), and a few others. Once you get the algorithm and fixing the rating bias and rating scores, get rid of your advisory board, practically all of them if not most are extremely biased. Decent for general view of either a news source is overall reliable but the users must take into account the left-leaning slant this extension has and look through the reasons why newsguard deems a news source unreliable, some of the reasons are either petty, seemingly political reasons, or something that science has either failed to address or have yet to address. Many sources that they label as untrustworthy are actually fine, if they fail minimum 2 of the checks in the news category they automatically fail. But all these ratings are subjected to change at any moments notice. So what the app deems unreliable today might be reliable tomorrow, and reason is not simply because they either corrected how they report but more-so on what they report, newsguard must be careful to not push the latter and only check the former.

>mfw people are finding out conservatives cant stop lying about everything. if you're looking to validate your current views of the world maybe don't rely on professional fact checkers

No longer offers free ratings icon.

Soon after I had installed this extension, I went on google to understand why I had dry feet. And the first result was flagged by NewsGuard as unreliable (selling miracle creams to gullible readers). I think this example illustrates how hard it is to get trustworthy information on the web, even when you shun the usual relays of disinformation. NewsGuard is very useful to assess in a glance the reliability of your google results.

A great addon for my browser that keeps me appraised of the stories that come across my TL/ Feed. I couldn't be happier. Thanks ya'll!

Works well. A few news sites I like aren't covered but I'm sure they will be given time. I wish the service itself for individuals was more inexpensive but I can't really fault them on needing funds to provide quality reviews.

I love the NewsGuard extension, especially the pop up grid! It's so helpful to see the why I should trust a website or not. Great tool for all ages!

Super useful!

This extension was great til they started scamming credit card numbers to use it. They're funded by Microsoft and all they're doing by putting it behind a paywall is screwing over the little guy.

lmao triggered the american tories

I like the fact that this tool provides criteria of exactly how it rates news sites rather than someone just arbitrarily giving it a thumbs up or down. It does appear to lean left. Not sure if that is because there are actually more deceptive right leaning news sites or some intrinsic left bias of the staff. I can't dismiss either assumption at this time but I applaud the idea of this tool.

I'm not sure how cost effective this app will be for me in the long run because I get most of my news from a few sources that I perceive as very trustworthy. However when I used this app to read up on a few of my long trusted sources my perceptions were validated, but I was really struck by the detail of the information provided about these sources I've long considered familiar. I really liked having that information, even though I'm not convinced I 'need' it all. I also read up on an oft mentioned news source that I have absolutely no trust in, and I learned of specific recent instances, thoroughly documented, illustrating why I shouldn't trust it. The history of a news source (its founders and their histories) as well as the revelation of its major investors (along with some of their other investments listed) can be very informative. I really liked the thoroughness with which all this stuff was laid out, and so methodically too (there's a checklist of attributes to analyze). How I heard of it was interesting to me: I was reading an article on the Democratic National Committee website about combatting disinformation and this app was recommended in that article. Since one party deals in facts and the other primarily in emotionally charged beliefs, whose recommendation to follow is a clear choice.

Extremely helpful, easy to read label for news wherever it shows up on the web. I like how it breaks down it's rating into easy-to-understand characteristics and integrates with aggregators and Facebook.

Why should we have to pay a subscription fee for this kind of service? So freaking dumb...this should be free.

Everyone knows their own go-to everyday news sources, but this extension really helps me out when it comes to specialty news sites, e.g. medical - I'm not a medical professional and without NewsGuard I would have to look harder to make sure a site is reputable. Indeed, NewsGuard has helped me find specialty news sources that I have added to my favorites because I know I can depend on them. And of course, as evidenced by all the one-star reviews, it helps filter out noise from the mean'n'nasty types too. Definitely maintaining my subscription.

Does exactly what it says on the tin. If you favor more conservative news sources, it lets you know which ones are reputable, and which aren't. If you favor more liberal news sources, the exact same. Better, it tells you why certain news sources are scored the way they are, and cites specific examples to support those ratings.

Very useful.The Economist brought me here.

Great design, clear about methodology, reviewers I find to be trustworthy, sadly necessary.

Very handy to see who owns the news sites, and where they receive their funding.

it explains the ratings it gives and they always check out. I see it has "bias" against commentary and activism in favor of news, a bias i can live with.

This is a great extension. I've seen criticism that it's biased against conservative or right wing media, but those people cite Breitbart, Drudge, The Blaze. Uh, there's a reason for that, folks. And, it merely says "proceed with caution". Those sites do not practice sound journalistic integrity.

i liked it until they switched to a paid subscription...cant afford that

it works

With political bias against some new agency

It used to be alright, but now the nutrition label is behind a paywall. I can't justify this extension without and explanation for its ratings and im not going to pay for this.

This is a highly-biased service. It gives MSM high marks across the board. It does NOT allow for the fact that MSM outlets, all the way down to bottom-feeding Buzzfeed and the always-lying Media Matters, can get a story wrong, even on accident (though much is on purpose), and ANYONE calling out those stories will get the bad ratings from NewsGuard. You have to use your own brain, and keep thinking for yourself. Forget using a biased service. It will only lead you astray. Read all the viewpoints for yourself and figure out who is lying to you yourself.

Incredibly biased. They will give activist organizations that repeatedly go against their ethos a green checkmark. One example is Media Matters. They will also give a red exclamation mark against other websites that while not (no website is perfect to be honest), are certainly much, much better than other websites that do get a green checkmark such as the aforementioned Media Matters.

This application said that the Daily Caller was mostly factual and did not have clickbait headlines. This is the site that just made news today because they are claiming that covid-19 is a weapon that was bioengineered. This is a well-known site for conspiracy theories and general misinformation. THe problem of identifying websites that are propogating disinformation is a difficult one that has not been solved. I sympathize with the authors of this site, but when it rates a site that is distributing information that is damaging to society, they need to stop and others need to be warned about them.

This is a long overdue innovation. There are lots of other data (and nonsense) streams that should be filtered by similar means.

I value something which rates a site based on clarity of where it is getting its information. This means that the sites which are relying on opinion but not labeling it as opinion or unknown sources which might be opinion instead of truth get ratings less than those which reveal where or from whom the information is coming. I don't have to wonder whether the information I read is a rumor generated to slander the truth. I value truth not a point of view...or if it is a point of view, I prefer that it is labeled as such. This does that. Opinions are not bad but they need to be recognized as opinion not as truth.

NewsGuard is an absolutely essential service, given the proliferation of internet-based news sources -- many lacking any journalistic standards -- particularly at a time when so many local and regional newspapers -- where journalistic standards did apply -- are failing or disappearing. NewsGuard does an excellent job of calling balls and strikes regardless of where a publication or news source is on the political spectrum.

I'm very happy with the extension. Its integration into Google Search results and and Twitter links saves me time.

This is great resource! No one wants to believe their news sites might be biased, so expect some bad reviews, but I highly recommend this for classroom and at home use--especially for those of us who teach or have teenagers. They need resources like this more than anyone else.

The initiative is very valuable. Still WIP and room for improvement but it's in the right direction!

Sehr transparent, detaillierte Hintergrundbeschreibungen der Nachrichtenseiten. Das perfekte Tool, zur richtigen Zeit um Vertrauen, Glaubwürdigkeit und Transparenz zu schaffen

Using Twitter or Facebook without this extension is impossible for me now. NewsGuard is amazing. The 1-star reviews here are from propaganda and misinformation websites who are upset that they are getting called. Ignore them. If you want to know what sources you can trust, use this plugin.

I appreciate the ratings that NewsGuard does. I understand what has a liberal bias, a conservative bias and is just plain BS propaganda.

separate the wheat from the chaff! essential!

Easily see what disclosures a site makes about ownership and content standards. Fair, uniform rating methodology that's fully disclosed. Simple and easy to use.

In spite of what some other readers believe, I find NewsGuard to be very informative and with an unbiased perspective.

Excellent app! If you have the need to prove the reliability or unreliability of a site, the detailed analysis in NewsGuard is invaluable.

Don't want to believe false news from wackadoodles or even worse people with hidden agendas. Be proactive in what you take in or for god sakes stop complaining. Use newguard!

NewsGuard is a "must have" in navigating fact based, unbiased news. I've been using it for a year and found it to be a reliable guide to trustworthy sites. It's opened by eyes because it gives high ratings to sites that often don't reflect my worldview, and makes me think twice about sites that I previously trusted. And NewsGuard tells you which standards the site has met or not met to achieve the rating the site was given - so it's transparent. Especially important now when many so called news outlets don't find it necessary to employ fact checkers anymore.

The world is full of misinformation -- and I spend my time trying to avoid false news and wish to center my focus on things that are generally factual. They have a reliable and non biased rating system and I love to scroll through my feed and know that if it's got a green check mark it's GOOD and if it has a red check mark I can just scroll past.

It's extremely helpful in determining whether to trust, and how much to trust, the many news and information sites out there these days. Well worth the money. While it's not perfect, i don't perceive any political bias. I do disagree on occasion with how it qualifies sources in some categories on both the left and the right, but mostly that's just nit-picking on my part. Overall it does a very thorough and creditable job. I see there are some reviewers who are critical of Newsguard. But it's apparent, at least to me, that they have a political axe to grind. Newsguard clearly doesn't.

Particularly in the era of the COVID-19 virus, it is important to understand how trustworthy the source of internet information is. Newsguard provides exactly that reassurance.

This is a wonderful extension, it helps me pick reliable news sources, so I know I am getting a fair and balanced information. Especially on Facebook!

I find it really helpful and trustworthy.

Accurate and useful. I see some reviews which take Newsguard to task for questioning Breitbart, Drudge, etc. These are known purveyors of debunked conspiracy theories, Russian misinformation and right-wing agit-prop. Good for Newsguard for sticking to credible, curated news sources with valid editorial standards. I find it just as useful as FactChecker, Politifact and Snopes. It's up to all of us to stop the online lies and weaponized social media.

Innovative concept; the Nutrition Labels are great for researching the various news outlets.

So useful in helping you decide how much to trust a source! Note it's worth clicking on the icon to see the more detailed scoring. E.g. The Intercept, although green overall, has a poor rating for distinguishing between news and opinion. In fact, I wish this had a bigger weight in the overall score.

Very useful for distinguishing reliable news sources from fake ones. The judgment criteria are transparent and the same for all the sites reviewed: a guarantee for the user

I find it to be a very useful tool.

NewGuard does a good job of separating biased propaganda vs. professional journalism. We certainly need that these days.

Great extension. Some people expect Newsguard to call out news that isn't music to their ears. They want to stay in their own echo chamber and have every other point of view rendered false. Good luck to you. As for me, I am grateful that Newsguard seeks to call out sites that run demonstrably false information, or in the case of coronavirus, dangerous information. It does that job well.

A great extension and resource. With so much misleading news out there, it's nice to have a resource that warns you to be care and double check some misleading articles that may lean one way or the other and by not sharing the full story so "YOU" can make an informed decision. I've reviewed may of the sites rated good and bad by this and based on my research have found it to be on target.

This is a great concept and well executed: lets me find out which sites are likely to fail some basic measurable qualities of sound properly researched journalism. In these days of fake news, misinformation and paid-for pitching, those basic qualities are worth remembering and this app really helps!

this is a GREAT product. works perfectly, provides evidence of its results. very transparent and fair process

Love this browser extension. Before I subscribed, I "checked up" on some of their ratings by verifying info from various news sources and seeing that News Guard was not feeding my false ratings. They seem to have it down pretty good.

Worth the price of admission to see a site's credibility and transparency, either summarized or thoroughly vetted (aka Nutrition Label). Nice to see who owns the site and how it is funded.

It's so easy to believe sources that agree with your viewpoint. It's so easy to label anything that challenges your viewpoint as fake news. It's normal. It's natural. We all do it. How can we ever find agreement if we trust different news sources with opposite spins on the same information. These journalists created a list of objective criteria and compare every site to the same list of objective criteria. This isn't about agreeing with their ratings, it's about analyzing their objective measurements and challenging your biased bubble. Grow up and truly challenge the news sources you trust. Challenge this extension, read what they have to say. This is exactly what we need right now.

State of the Art in Trust NewsGuard is a state of the art application to help news consumers figure out who to trust and why. It provides a simple system to know who you can trust, who you can't and why. In an era of fake news, this is an important, vital filter for people and researchers to have in their toolbox to ensure the accuracy of information we consume and reference.

Usually pretty reliable. I'm hoping scope and coverage will increase over time. Huge job of course.

This is a biased news ratings plugin designed to decry perspective in journalism. The plugin itself is invasive and makes page load times sluggish. The simplistic red/green setup belies the utter waste of time it takes to get rated by NewsGuard, which means that it's a plugin no more useful than the hysteria lists from late 2016 which a few academics published to blacklist news websites that are not corporate. What's the point of creating an elaborate 9 point scale, when the plugin is little more than an opinion website itself. Downgrading a site to red because it has never had to make a correction is the height of insane literalism, but they do it. NewsGuard's criterion or reviewers cannot tell the difference between newsmaking interviews from people involved in current events and opinion stories. In one case, NewsGuard literally picked a single 2 year old tweet, which was deleted, as a basis for downgrading a website started over 18 months later. NewsGuard has a heavy bias towards absolute literalism that is inappropriate for understanding politics, which is not math. This is a useless plugin, which is too bad because the web needs a nuanced and intelligent product like this one, but it is dependent on the opinion of the people in charge, who don't believe they're biased, which is a shame, so I am uninstalling it. STILL INACCURATE: WON'T CORRECT OWN FALSE REPORTING, EVEN WHEN MAINSTREAM NEWS REPORTS THINGS ACCURATELY. YOU HAVE TO BEG THEM JUST TO CORRECT THEIR OWN BAD WORK. EVEN WORSE THEY CHARGE YOU TO SEE YOUR RATING. THIS IS TAKING WEBSITE EVALUATION TO THE LOWEST COMMON DENOMINATOR.

NewsGuard has been a great help for me to establish what is the right source of information. Not only that, it helped me to debunked many of the information shared by others. Although I may not ever rely fully on it, but this has been a great added indicator.

I heard about this extension after watching a course from The Great courses called Fighting Misinformation: Digital Media Literacy. I find this very useful for both medical and news. If your favorite source is having issues with the rate system, forward the report to see if they will make changes such as disclose ownership information or posting corrections.

I find this app or extension very accurate and unbiased. The explanations a offered in the complete "nutrional label" arer exact and fact based. Well worth the cost. I think people who berated this app due to its "bias" don't' understand the word what the word "bias" means. A studied result that may be unfavorable is not a "bias," it is a honest evaluation. This app is so helpful I recomend it to everyone.

This tool makes it a lot easier to judge how much a story from a source needs to be validated before believing it. Like any tool, it's not perfect, but it's a lot easier than flying blind or relying solely on my own biases. It's a nice gut check.

Very useful for research purposes. Identifies invalid web sites and saves lots of time.

I believe that the team is doing the online world a ton of good. People may disagree at the margins - but I find their nutrition guides to be clear and transparent. I've seen some of the negative reviews (and the positive ones). We as humans want to be reassured that what we believe is the definitive view of the truth - and it hurts us when that is questioned. Understanding journalistic standards matters because much activism is presented as definitive truths. It isn't help on either side of the divide and I believe NewsGuard helps expose non-transparent behavior.

Newsguard makes news sites so much more transparent by providing relevant information about the way they gather information and do business. It's very helpful.

It is a valued tool for recognizing which media outlets make an effort to provide objective, factual news reports. For each media outlet, NewsGuard provides the ranking categories and metrics that help define the final rating. It will never override knee-jerk reactions of those bent to some favorite source that simply preaches to the choir (whether MSNBC, Breitbart, or Drudge, et. al.) but overall it does a good job defining which media are more trustworthy.

I particularly like the integration with Facebook and the transparency in how the ratings are calculated. You can drill down to see exactly what the nine criteria are and why a particular site was given the score it was.

O.k., elephant in the room. Yes, right-wing media has more 'misleading' titles and use charged words. However, Buzzfeed and Vox are literally just as bad. So is this app bias? Well, yes, in that it allows a more accurate assessment of right-wing media vs. left-wing media... at times. The main strong news sources are rated fairly accurately. The real bias exists in that it doesn't treat both extremes equally. You will find more reputable news on the left, it's simply a byproduct of the nature of right leaning sources gearing news as more inflammatory and agitated. However, they do not look for those same elements when they are being used in turn by SOME left-leaning (usually hard leans) on the other side. Bias, but still MOSTLY fair.

I have been using news guard for several months and like the concept of rating reliability for news reporting. It saves time as I can bypass articles that do not satisfy the criteria set up by news guard.

A great sanity check on news sources. While you may doubt the overall rating for some sites, you can always drill down and see the report card and evaluate for yourself. Especially useful for sites you aren't familiar with.

Very thoughtful evaluation of self-described newsites. Some may quibble with the specifics of each rating but the analysis of each site is balanced. I'd like to see more gradations in the color coding to reflect the gradations of the scores themselves.

Every competitive endeavor needs an arbiter. Whether it is in a national election, or a courtroom trial, or a tennis court, or a chess match. Of course the judges are human, with all the complexities that go with that. But most arbiters try VERY hard to be objective, and take pride in the fairness they bring to the competition. NewsGuard is there at the top with the very best. They lean in to the wind of adversity, and take the high road to fairness. Trust is earned. They have mine.

I am a subscriber. I like the way NewsGuard encourages me to read round topics and challenges an inherent laziness to do so. I also like, really like, their rating table though was disappointed that they buckled under the Daily Mail's legal-backed threat when that was initially adversely rated.

Easy to Use once installed. Grade cards for news sources, even in social media feeds, are easy to understand and useful in a time of an exploding number of 'news' sources and sensationalist headlines.

My profession, strategic communications, relies on facts. They are a cornerstone of what we do today more that ever before. It is wonderful to have NewsGuard in my corner as I can easily assess whether a source is fact, fiction or just plain unknown. It allows me to easily and effectively counsel my clients.

First of all, I pay for and highly recommend this extension and service to my friends and family. Bias is one thing, but all NewsGuard does is put more information in front of you, collated in a professional and at least relatively unbiased way. I wish the check marks would give more specific information. All conservatives see is "leftists labeled it bad -- it must be good". When you dig into the actual reports, it's always facts. The presentation of them may be biased, but it's much more meaningful to see "XXXXX published these 6 articles making the following claims" than it is to see "XXXXX 3/12 don't listen to them".

This app works extremely well and is completely transparent as to the "journalistic virtues" that it is based on. Some highly partisan sources -- both left and right == do not like being flagged as biased (or worse). Newsguard is reacting to their structure -- e.g., having an appeal process -- and not the tenor of their coverage. Pushing online media to be MORE FAIR to all concerned is important, and Newsguard does it.

I never leave ratings on the web for a lot of reasons. But it's important to understand how vital this service can be as a step towards reason and facts. I may disagree with Steven Brill and some of the founders, advisers, and investors in NewsGuard, but I trust them. Trust and agreement are two separate things, a truth often lost in this world today from many political persuasions. Let's give Truth a chance. Support NewsGuard. This is a worthwhile endeavor and a worthwhile Chrome extension.

Absolutely essential part of the tool box for detecting fake news. Highly recommended.

Its ok but has serious bias problems. If you constantly give mainstream or VC funded websites a green check mark then use those same outlets to fact check others you create a negative feedback loop. Eventually your own bias is being fed back to you and you assume that the sites you consider reliable are posting true information and use that bias to incorrectly rate their political rivals Why would a left wing activist website like Media Matters, which has repeatedly published lies and false information, be green but Daily Wire, a conservative opinion site, be red? If the concern is that daily wire has published a few false stories then why not go after Buzzfeed who has done the same? Newsguard is trapped in a bubble and they dont even realize it