05/12/2023

NewsGuard Identifies 57 Nonprofit and Government Organizations Advertising on Websites Spreading Misinformation

NewsGuard analysts in a report for the European Commission identified 108 programmatic ads from 57 nonprofit and government organizations on websites that have been found by NewsGuard to spread misinformation, including ads for Amnesty International and the Red Cross on sites publishing false Russian claims about Ukraine.

(May 12, 2023 — New York City) A new report from NewsGuard has found that dozens of nonprofit and government organizations are running programmatic advertisements on sites that traffic in misinformation.

In April and May 2023, NewsGuard analysts identified 108 programmatic ads from 57 nonprofit and government organizations that appeared on 50 websites that have been found by NewsGuard to spread misinformation. Some of these ads were placed adjacent to articles containing false or misleading content, while others were displayed elsewhere on the sites.

The ads were served up to NewsGuard analysts browsing the internet in nine countries: the U.S., the U.K., Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Austria, the Netherlands and New Zealand.

At the request of officials from countries around the world, NewsGuard issues regular reports to the European Commission, governments, and the World Health Organization. In June 2022, NewsGuard became a signatory to the European Code of Practice on Disinformation. Under the revised Code, major platforms committed “to defund the dissemination of disinformation, and improve the policies and systems which determine the eligibility of content to be monetized, the controls for monetization and ad placement.” NewsGuard, a signatory to the Code, has agreed to supply the Commission with reports and data related to these commitments.

It is in the nature of programmatic, automatically placed advertising that ads will appear on misinformation sites unintentionally unless advertisers take steps to exclude untrustworthy sites.

Among NewsGuard’s key findings:

Nearly half of the ads (47) that NewsGuard identified were for humanitarian and relief organizations, many of which are assisting refugees and citizens in Ukraine. For example, NewsGuard identified an ad for the Red Cross on the English-language version of Pravda.ru, (“Pravda” means “truth” in Russian), a site that gets a 17.5/100 Trust Score rating from NewsGuard that has advanced numerous Russian disinformation narratives and is operated by Vadim Gorshenin, a self-described supporter of Russian President Vladimir Putin. In addition, NewsGuard found Amnesty International ads on seven websites that have advanced false claims about the Russia-Ukraine conflict. Among these is CasadelSole.tv (NewsGuard Trust Score: 17.5/100), a video site based in Italy that repeatedly publishes Russian propaganda about the war in Ukraine.
Nine health organizations are advertising on sites trafficking in blatant and at times dangerous health misinformation, including false claims about the dangers of COVID-19 vaccines and bogus health remedies. For example, an ad for Planned Parenthood appeared on an article published by ReturnToNow.net (Trust Score: 25/100) that promotes dangerous herbal abortion recipes.
More than 70% of the nonprofit and government ads NewsGuard identified — 81 of 108 — were served to NewsGuard by Google, the largest online ad platform, which generated $168 billion in revenue last year from online advertising alone.

NewsGuard also found that more than a dozen sites appear to be violating Google’s Publisher Policies, which state that any site that “exploits, dismisses, or condones” the Russia-Ukraine War will be barred from using the company’s ad technology. In total, NewsGuard identified 20 nonprofit and government organizations advertising on 13 websites that have spread misinformation about the Russia-Ukraine war using Google ad technology.

It is difficult to estimate how much money nonprofits and government organizations are directing toward misinformation sites through programmatic advertising. An estimate would depend on a variety of factors, such as the number of clicks on the ads, the ad placements, ad pricing, and site traffic. Some of the ads identified by NewsGuard were placed by the Ad Council — a nonprofit organization that produces public service announcements on behalf of government agencies and well-established nonprofits, and places them on websites — though it is often challenging to identify an Ad Council campaign. Websites regularly donate space to the Ad Council, providing these sites with a measure of credibility they would not otherwise have. According to an August 2021 report by Comscore and NewsGuard, misinformation sites — including those peddling Russian disinformation, health-care hoaxes, and false claims about elections — earn $2.6 billion annually from big brands through programmatic advertising.

Note: NewsGuard licenses its ratings of 30,000 sources of news and information, including more than 8,500 websites, to help brands avoid unintentionally placing programmatic advertisements on misinformation websites. NewsGuard’s exclusion lists are used by advertisers, ad agencies and ad-tech companies to exclude websites from advertising support, and NewsGuard’s inclusion lists are used instead to place ads on generally trustworthy sites, supporting quality journalism.

More details are available in the full report, available HERE.

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., U.K., Canada, Germany, France, Austria, Italy, and now in Australia and New Zealand. NewsGuard products include NewsGuard ratings, NewsGuard for Advertisers, which helps marketers concerned about their brand safety, and the Misinformation Fingerprints catalog of top false narratives online.

In February 2023, the company launched NewsGuard for AI, which provides the leading tools to train generative AI models to avoid spreading misinformation. Generative AI models such as Microsoft Bing Chat use the Misinformation Fingerprints to recognize and avoid spreading the top false narratives online and use the NewsGuard ratings to differentiate between generally reliable sources of news and information and untrustworthy sources so that the machines can be trained to treat these sources differently.

In 2022, NewsGuard for Advertising began to include ratings of television news and information programs and networks using criteria similar to those used to score websites but adapted for the video medium. NewsGuard’s TV ratings are the first to go beyond its initial ratings of websites. In May 2023, NewsGuard announced that it is also rating news and information podcasts, working with three of the largest audio platforms, which will help advertisers gain confidence in supporting highly rated podcasts. Ratings for CTV and OTT news programming and news and information podcasts will be available for licensing in 2023.

NewsGuard’s ratings are conducted by trained journalists using apolitical criteria of journalistic practice.

NewsGuard’s ratings and Nutrition Labels are licensed by browsers, news aggregators, education companies, and social media and search platforms to make NewsGuard’s information about news websites available to their users. Consumers can also access NewsGuard’s website ratings by purchasing a subscription to NewsGuard, which costs AU$6.95/month, NZ$6.95/month, US$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 NewsGuard’s ratings process, visit newsguardtech.com.