NewsGuard Red-flagged Us for Publishing “False Information”… Because We Refused to LIE
by Daisy Luther, The Organic Prepper:
Recently, The Organic Prepper website was targeted by an Orwellian judge-and-jury of the internet called NewsGuard. In a series of emails, the organization demanded that we make a variety of changes. While some changes seemed reasonable, others were completely out of line with our website’s integrity. We aren’t the only ones so-targeted. Also found lacking by NewsGuard were LewRockwell.com, ZeroHedge.com, DailyKos.com, Alternet.org, MintPress News, Mercola.com, and MindBodyGreen, to name a few.
TRUTH LIVES on at https://sgtreport.tv/
What do we all have in common? We’re all willing to question the official narrative. And in 2022, under the current administration, that’s simply against the rules of the powers that be. Questioning the establishment is akin to treason, a crime that must be punished, and voices that must be silenced lest others be led into the dark, disturbing corners of thinking for themselves.
Let me tell you what happened.
Despite politely corresponding with the person who contacted us and updating some of the things requested, we were given a poor rating and a red warning flag in a move that could damage our credibility and our ability to do business. Why? Well, in part because we refused to cede to their demands, and we instead chose to offer both sides of the story. In a tale of audacity that reminds me of extortion schemes and enforced “protection” by the Mob, our unwillingness to get in line puts at risk our very existence.
Wait…both sides of the story? It turns out that apparently, such open-mindedness is no longer acceptable in the United States of America.
DISCLAIMER What follows is my OPINION AND PERSONAL PERSPECTIVE on what occurred. (Even if NewsGuard is mad about our “opinionated language, at this point, we still live in a country in which opinions are protected speech. Well, sort of, as you’ll see.)
In short, a self-appointed Ministry of Truth that publicly purports to help sites that support certain narratives make more money while downgrading sites that question the official line combed through ten years of articles on The Organic Prepper website and requested we make a number of changes and correct our “errors.” When the organization failed to prove to me that we had, in fact, published erroneous information, I posted additional links into the articles in question, providing readers with a variety of opinions on the topics at hand.
This was insufficient, as you’ll see from screenshots I took from NewsGuard’s write-up on this website. My refusal to “correct” information that I still do not believe to be incorrect was deemed a deliberate and repeated publication of false information. NewsGuard, a corporate arm of censorship enforcement with ties to the United States government, doesn’t think that the readers of this website are capable of reading information and ascertaining what they believe to be correct. They seem to feel that readers must be spoon-fed one narrative without any questions, or those same readers will be blithely led down the path of confusion and falsehoods.
However, dear readers, I have more faith in you. I know that you can consume a plethora of information from a wide variety of sources and have the intelligence and good judgment to make up your own minds about what is true and what is false.
Interestingly, other sites that were allegedly guilty of the same journalistic crimes scored far higher and received a green flag. Upcoming articles will address these conflicting ratings and will provide the timeline for our correspondence with NewsGuard.
We’ve been warning for ages that our website and any other site posting viewpoints that aren’t in lockstep with the mainstream narrative are being targeted and censored. We’ve been telling you that it’s only a matter of time until alternative views are just a whisper in the darkness of a propagandized, government-controlled media.
A quick history of modern alternative media censorship
The first time I experienced blatant censorship firsthand was in 2016 when I posted an article that contained two videos. One was the edited clip shown on the news, and the other was the unedited clip. Of course, the unedited clip was promptly removed from YouTube, and my post about this was removed from Facebook for “hate speech.” You can see the article in question here and the follow-up about what happened here. About a year later, California proposed an absurd bill that would punish anyone sharing “fake news.”
By 2018, the pace had picked up dramatically. First, in March, I shared a video by Ben Swann (ironically, it’s been removed by YouTube) that discussed the modern Newspeak, assuring we only hear one side of every story. Later, in September, I addressed the purge of alternative voices from social media, starting with Alex Jones. I warned that you didn’t have to be a fan of Jones to be unhappy that he’d been silenced. By October, that purge had spread to include the Twitter and Facebook accounts of the following outlets: The AntiMedia (2.1 million fans), The Free Thought Project (3.1 million fans), Press for Truth (350K fans), Police the Police (1.9 million fans), Cop Block (1.7 million fans), and Punk Rock Libertarians (125K fans). At that time, I wrote, “The alternative media purge is just the beginning. And we should all be very concerned.”
Unfortunately, that prediction was correct.
Between 2018 and 2022, we published more than 50 articles about continuing censorship, biased “fact-checking,” the 1st Amendment, and the double standard in social media and mainstream media. Some of those articles you may wish to look at are The Censorship of Alternative Media Is Virtual Book Burning, 51% of Americans Want to END Freedom of Speech (Many Even Want JAIL TIME for “Hate Speech”), SILENCED: We Live in a Time When Our “Opinions Qualify as Crimes”, and Big Tech Can Make Sure Billions of People NEVER See Dissenting Opinions.
Businesses were destroyed, people were “canceled,” and any opposition was deemed “hateful” or “false.”
We at The Organic Prepper got defunded in 2021 for being a “disinformation website,” and when I began to take legal action, threats ensued that could have ruined us all. (We’re sure they were completely unrelated to the lawsuit.) We lost thousands of dollars in monthly income, and it has been a true financial struggle ever since that happened.
The DHS started, then closed, a Ministry of Truth.
This year, the Department of Homeland Security tapped Nina Jancowicz to run a newly created “Government Disinformation Board” to become the official government arbiters of truth. After the Attorneys General of 20 states threatened legal action over the dystopian unit, it was disbanded (or at least “paused.)
This is rather misleading, though. While the official DHS board is no more, censorship is still alive and well. NewsGuard wields a different weapon than the official Ministry, but it’s no less menacing and leaves no room for dissenting opinions.
