04/04/2022
NewsGuard List of Russia-Ukraine Disinformation Websites Jumps From 116 To 172
Tracking Center Now Pinpoints 23 Top Myths They Are Pushing
(April 5, 2022 — New York City) NewsGuard announced today that in the past four weeks, its analysts have identified 56 new websites which publish Russia-Ukraine related disinformation, and 13 new myths about the conflict that are spreading online.
NewsGuard launched the Russia-Ukraine Disinformation Tracking Center on March 3, 2022, tracking 116 Russia-Ukraine disinformation websites and the ten top myths being spread about the conflict. A month later, the number of myths identified by NewsGuard’s team of analysts has more than doubled to 23, while the number of websites tracked is now 172 — 48% more than NewsGuard had tracked as of March 3.
The Tracking Center, which is publicly available here, will continue to record and debunk the top myths related to the Russia-Ukraine. The Top 23 falsehoods include 20 that are pro-Russia propaganda and three that support Ukraine with false or misleading anti-Russia claims made to paint a favorable, but inaccurate, picture of Ukraine’s performance in the war. As new myths appear and evolve, NewsGuard will update the list of myths accordingly.
172 Propaganda Websites—and Counting
Each of the 172 sites in NewsGuard’s Russia-Ukraine Disinformation Tracking Center has spread at least one of the top 23 myths about the conflict listed in the tracker. Even before the Russian invasion, NewsGuard had rated the overwhelming majority of these disinformation sites Red, for being generally untrustworthy. This is a number of websites far greater than the handful of sites identified by digital platforms such as Google, Facebook, Twitter and TikTok for sanctioning at the start of the invasion. All of these sites have published falsehoods also peddled by the Kremlin.
The digital platforms have announced temporary measures in some countries against well-known, Russian government-owned propaganda outlets such as RT, Sputnik News and TASS. However, the large number of other sites identified by NewsGuard continue freely to spread myths on their platforms without any labelling by the platforms explaining to readers that these sites spread disinformation. An example of a lesser-known website promoting Russia’s myths about Ukraine is OneWorld.press, which bills itself as a “Global Think Tank” and which NewsGuard rated Red for regularly publishing falsehoods supporting Russian disinformation and for failing to disclose its ownership or control. The NewsGuard label for this website notes that its internet domain was registered in Moscow.
In fact, in the case of 55 of the websites that NewsGuard has identified so far promoting Russian disinformation, these sites continue to earn programmatic advertising revenue—placed on behalf of blue-chip brands without their knowledge or intention and funding Russian disinformation. Many of these programmatic ads are placed by Google, which operates the largest demand-side platform delivering display advertising for the world’s largest brands.
“Russia benefits from a multi-layered strategy to introduce, amplify, and spread false and distorted narratives across the world,” said Steven Brill, Co-CEO of NewsGuard. “The Putin government relies on a mix of official state media sources, anonymous websites and accounts, and other methods to distribute myths designed to advance Russian interests and undermine its adversaries. We will continue to track the top myths as they are launched and will continue to identify and rate websites publishing propaganda falsehoods.”
“The Putin government took full advantage of the failure of Silicon Valley’s leading digital platforms to take responsibility for the ‘news’ brands they promote in their products,” said Gordon Crovitz, Co-CEO of NewsGuard. “For example, it’s too little too late that YouTube has temporarily blocked Putin’s RT after years of RT being able to brag it is the most popular source of news on Google’s YouTube, with 10 billion views. These videos include propaganda spreading falsehoods about Ukraine seeking to justify its invasion. Beyond misleading readers, advertisers are understandably shocked to learn that Google and other ad-tech providers are delivering their ads on sites supporting Putin’s disinformation, endangering their brand safety while in effect subsidizing Russian propaganda efforts.”
“In the case of RT, Sputnik, and TASS,” Brill added, “these are “news” operations that have been forced by the U.S. Justice Department to register as foreign agents. One would have thought that even in Silicon Valley that would be enough of a tip-off that these are not reliable news sites worthy of the advertising funding facilitated by these tech platforms.”
NewsGuard’s mission is to counter misinformation on behalf of readers, brands and democracies. Companies such as Microsoft through its Edge browser and the Neeva search engine provide users with NewsGuard ratings and Nutrition Labels so that they know the nature of the sources of news they see on digital platforms. An increasing number of advertisers, advertising agencies and ad-tech companies now use NewsGuard’s brand-safety tools to ensure that programmatic ads don’t support misinformation sites such as those publishing Russian myths justifying its war against Ukraine. NewsGuard provides its catalog of top myths across multiple categories to the U.S. Department of State, the Pentagon’s Cyber Command, and other government and defense entities. In 2020, the U.S. Department of State’s Global Engagement Center, citing NewsGuard’s reporting and data, outlined key components of these efforts in its report, “Pillars of Russia’s Disinformation and Propaganda Ecosystem.”
Researchers, platforms, advertisers, government agencies, or other institutions interested in accessing the full list of domains supporting the disinformation of the Putin government can contact us here: Request domain list.
About NewsGuard
Launched in March 2018 by media entrepreneur and award-winning journalist Steven Brill and former Wall Street Journal publisher Gordon Crovitz, NewsGuard provides credibility ratings and detailed “Nutrition Labels” for thousands of news and information websites. NewsGuard rates all the news and information websites that account for 95% of online engagement across the U.S., Canada, U.K., Germany, France, and Italy. NewsGuard products include NewsGuard, HealthGuard, and BrandGuard, which helps marketers concerned about their brand safety, and the Misinformation Fingerprints catalog of top hoaxes.
NewsGuard rates each site based on nine apolitical criteria of journalistic practice, including whether a site repeatedly publishes false content, whether it regularly corrects or clarifies errors, and whether it avoids deceptive headlines. It awards weighted points for each criterion and sums them up; a score of less than 60 earns a “Red” rating, while 60 and above earns a “Green” rating, which indicates it is generally reliable.
NewsGuard’s ratings and Nutrition Labels can be licensed by internet service providers, browsers, news aggregators, education companies, and social media and search platforms in order to make NewsGuard’s information about news websites available to their users. Consumers can access these ratings by purchasing a subscription to NewsGuard, which costs $4.95/month, €4.95/month or £4.95/month, and includes access to NewsGuard’s browser extension for Chrome, Safari, and Firefox and its mobile app for iOS and Android. The extension is available for free on Microsoft’s Edge browser through a license agreement with Microsoft. Hundreds of public libraries globally receive free access to use NewsGuard’s browser extension on their public-access computers to give their patrons more context for the news they encounter online. For more information, including to download the browser extension and review the ratings process, visit newsguardtech.com.