09/13/2023

ETHOS Network Taps NewsGuard’s Misinformation Fingerprints in Industry-Leading Fact-Checking Feature for Social Media Users

Users can now check before they share

(September 13, 2023 — London) NewsGuard, the leading provider of news credibility data for tech platforms, social media companies, trust and safety teams, and consumers, has partnered with The ETHOS Network in a first-of-its-kind free fact checking feature for users.

ETHOS has integrated NewsGuard’s Misinformation Fingerprints, a machine-readable database of the most significant provably false narratives on the internet, into its user interface.

The fingerprint entries provide descriptions of provably false statements, and offer closely researched, credibly sourced “debunks” to each false claim. They do not cover hotly debated issues from an opinionated perspective. These detailed debunks are available to ETHOS users to alert them to misinformation before posting online, and provide accurate information. These accurate explanations can be used by them, including by attaching debunks to their posts to increase trust and transparency in online discourse.

“We are so proud to announce the launch of our revolutionary fact-checking feature in collaboration with NewsGuard,” said ETHOS CEO Alejandra de Brunner. “With this first-of-its-kind feature, we are committed to improving the quality of discourse online and most importantly, to ensuring it is accessible and actionable by Gen Z. This partnership marks a significant step towards combating the spread of misinformation and educating social media users about what we hope is the future of the digital age: one where it is much easier for us to access and make use of information we can trust.”

“The most effective trust and safety solutions are those that have an impact before a user even hits ‘publish’ on a post, and we applaud ETHOS’s commitment to empowering users to take greater accountability for the information they share,” said NewsGuard’s Head of Communications and Marketing, Veena McCoole. “The NewsGuard integration with ETHOS is proof that large and small social media platforms alike have the ability to transform their news feeds into safer, transparent spaces for all if they choose to.”

ETHOS’ integration of NewsGuard’s Misinformation Fingerprints enables users to fact check information before they publish, and attach NewsGuard’s Misinformation Fingerprint entries to their posts.

Misinformation Fingerprints include statements of each narrative, a debunk of the narrative citing authoritative sources, links containing the false claim, and related keywords and hashtags. They can be used by platforms such as social media services to alert users to false narratives in their news feed or otherwise being shared with them. The Misinformation Fingerprints database is constantly updated and expanded with the latest falsehoods, and is also licensed by reputation management companies, social intelligence tools and democratic country officials countering disinformation efforts by authoritarian regimes.

This industry-leading feature marks a step change in how social platforms treat their duty of care to users, as tech executives recognize how empowering users with innovative tools to reduce misinformation online can help ease the burden of trust and safety teams. By putting pre-publication fact-checking features and source credibility rating integrations into the hands of users, technology platforms empower their users by providing independent information about narratives in the news and news sources. This approach has been endorsed by the European Commission’s Code of Practice on Disinformation, which features fact checking and source credibility ratings as critical tools social media platforms should provide to empower their users.

To learn more about NewsGuard’s data for social media platforms and trust and safety teams, email partnerships@newsguardtech.com.

 

About the ETHOS Network

The ETHOS Network was founded in 2020 by 19-year-old student, Alejandra de Brunner, as a platform for Gen Z to connect, educate and share information on the topics that matter to them the most. Designed to promote a positive and sociable culture around social change, ETHOS is a social network with impact. ETHOS is the feel-good social media app.

About NewsGuard

Founded by media entrepreneur and award-winning journalist Steven Brill and former Wall Street Journal publisher Gordon Crovitz, NewsGuard provides transparent tools to counter misinformation for readers, brands, and democracies. Since launching in 2018, its global staff of trained journalists and information specialists has collected, updated, and deployed more than 6.9 million data points on more than 35,000 news and information sources, and to catalog and track all of the top false narratives spreading online.

NewsGuard’s analysts, powered by multiple AI tools, operate the trust industry’s most accountable and largest dataset on news. These data are deployed to fine-tune and provide guardrails for generative AI models, enable brands to advertise on quality news sites and avoid propaganda or hoax sites, provide media literacy guidance for individuals, and support democratic governments in countering hostile disinformation operations targeting their citizens.

Among other indicators of the scale of its operations is that NewsGuard’s apolitical and transparent criteria have been applied by its analysts to rate news sources accounting for 95% of online engagement with news across nine countries.