Review by concentricbrainwaves
Rated 4 out of 5
by concentricbrainwaves, 6 years agoThis extension gets four stars, for now.
Most of this accolade is for the idea and some of it is an encouragement to further development into a truly impartial algorithmic guide (insofar as this is possible).
I think the red-and-green categorisations are a little too black-and-white and likely to be controversial (because, increasingly, almost nobody among the general population reads "the news" without some acquired bias). Perhaps *White* should mean "so far as can be detected this site is trying to get it right" and *Amber* should mean "there is some doubt about the veracity of some items on this site" with, in both cases, a link to more detail. A third colour (Blue?) would be useful to indicate news aggregators with a legend along the lines of "This is a news aggregation site. Please check source articles on the originating sites".
Finally, it is disappointing that a particular print-and-online "news" publication recently had it's rating changed from "Red" to "Green" without changing its editorial stance in any way. To my mind "Red" was thoroughly deserved because the publication presents opinion as if it were fact and habitually spins news to such a degree that it winds up seeming to mean the opposite of the original facts. Others will disagree with me on that assessment but independently verifiable "facts" are "the news" which the reader should interpret whereas "opinion" is someone else's (often malicious and politically motivated) interpretation. When opinion is dressed up as the news it is *fake news*; when a fact is twisted it becomes a lie. If, under the colour scheme suggested above, the publication in question were to be marked "amber" (with straight-forward explanation) - No Red, No Green, - NewsGuard's rating would be less likely to seem biased, even to some of the One-Star Generals who, in this comment space, have denigrated this nascent attempt to differentiate information from disinformation.
Most of this accolade is for the idea and some of it is an encouragement to further development into a truly impartial algorithmic guide (insofar as this is possible).
I think the red-and-green categorisations are a little too black-and-white and likely to be controversial (because, increasingly, almost nobody among the general population reads "the news" without some acquired bias). Perhaps *White* should mean "so far as can be detected this site is trying to get it right" and *Amber* should mean "there is some doubt about the veracity of some items on this site" with, in both cases, a link to more detail. A third colour (Blue?) would be useful to indicate news aggregators with a legend along the lines of "This is a news aggregation site. Please check source articles on the originating sites".
Finally, it is disappointing that a particular print-and-online "news" publication recently had it's rating changed from "Red" to "Green" without changing its editorial stance in any way. To my mind "Red" was thoroughly deserved because the publication presents opinion as if it were fact and habitually spins news to such a degree that it winds up seeming to mean the opposite of the original facts. Others will disagree with me on that assessment but independently verifiable "facts" are "the news" which the reader should interpret whereas "opinion" is someone else's (often malicious and politically motivated) interpretation. When opinion is dressed up as the news it is *fake news*; when a fact is twisted it becomes a lie. If, under the colour scheme suggested above, the publication in question were to be marked "amber" (with straight-forward explanation) - No Red, No Green, - NewsGuard's rating would be less likely to seem biased, even to some of the One-Star Generals who, in this comment space, have denigrated this nascent attempt to differentiate information from disinformation.
242 reviews
- Rated 5 out of 5by JuliaD, 4 days agoAn excellent service, well-worth the small monthly fee. It clearly shows the extent to which sites can be trusted, as well as explaining how these decisions are reached.
- Rated 1 out of 5by MisterAlex, 6 months agoExtension does nothing without paying for a subscription.
- Rated 5 out of 5by Firefox user 17953219, a year agoThis service is not a replacement for critical thinking and due diligence. It provides helpful alerts of some web sites with a history of inaccurate reporting. It is not the biased, Orwellian overlord the negative reviewers would have us believe. And, they are identifying content-farm sites that are using AI to create content/news. This is a very serious problem NewsGuard is tackling.
- Rated 5 out of 5by NT, a year ago
- Rated 5 out of 5by PAUL_D74, a year ago
- Rated 1 out of 5by Firefox user 15237927, a year agoThis plugin is great! I hated having to apply critical thought to the news stories I was reading, so exhausting! Now I browse away in safety and comfort, secure in the knowledge that all my thinking is being done for me by professionals! I really hope ReligionGuard is in the works???
- Rated 1 out of 5by SuNin, a year agoYou have to pay to use it? That seems ridiculous to me. I don't want to sign up for anything, I'm not interested in your free trial of anything. I just want to know if a site can be trusted and what the rating is and what to watch out for.
If you don't have to pay, you still have to sign up, there doesn't seem to be a way to bypass that screen. I don't need some shady company collecting information on my internet search habits. These guys are a data breach waiting to happen. - Rated 1 out of 5by Paulie, 2 years agoEs kann wohl nicht wahr sein, dass auf der Mozilla Seite ein Add-on angeboten wird, welches konservative und andere nicht willkommene Meinungen aus dem Netz zu verdrängen sucht. Ich traue keinem Faktenchecker, dazu sollte jeder halbwegs intelligenter Mensch selbst in der Lage sein.
- Rated 1 out of 5by Firefox user 17839720, 2 years agovermeintlicher Faktenchecker - ein Fall für das Wahrheitsministerium!
- Rated 1 out of 5by Firefox user 13782624, 2 years ago
- Rated 1 out of 5by Lucky Joestar, 2 years ago
- Rated 4 out of 5by Firefox user 16347626, 2 years ago
- Rated 5 out of 5by Neo.Entreprise, 2 years ago
- Rated 5 out of 5by Firefox user 14704642, 2 years ago
- Rated 1 out of 5by Mritz, 2 years ago
- Rated 1 out of 5by Firefox user 13524391, 2 years ago
- Rated 1 out of 5by Firefox user 17455534, 2 years ago
- Rated 5 out of 5by Firefox user 14751204, 2 years ago
- Rated 1 out of 5by Firefox user 12945303, 3 years ago
- Rated 5 out of 5by par1138, 3 years ago
- Rated 5 out of 5by Tachyth, 3 years ago
- Rated 1 out of 5by franz, 3 years ago
- Rated 1 out of 5by joe_s, 3 years agoThis add-on not only wants to be our ministry of truth, as mentioned by others. It also wants to spy on us. Look at the permissions it asks for!