Review by Firefox user 14620593
Rated 5 out of 5
by Firefox user 14620593, 6 years agoThere is no perfect solution to fake news other than taking personal resposibility for the time and effort requird to verify information. This plugin is simply a tool which can give an indication to how trustworthy a source is likely to be. There are a lot of lazy 1-star reviews from people angry that their most loved or most hated news outlet isn't rated how they want it to be. That is missing the point. I personally disagree with just about everything that is published by the British Tabloid "The Daily Mail" - but it gets a green rating overall and gets 6 out of 9 greens. half of these green ratings are for transparency - for all it's nasty content the mail doesn't hide what it is - it is the rightwing mouthpiece of Viscount Rothermere, a member of the British aristocracy. Whilst the reporting in the daily mail is heavily biased, this is not what newsguard claims to rate.
Furthermore - rather than criticise newsguard for changing the rating for the daily mail from red to green (as they recently did), I admire their openness to change. The mail previously rated less well for openness, probably because when contacted by newsguard originally they weren't forthcoming with the information requested, and deservedly got rated badly for openness. Once the mail made this information available newsguard rightly changed their rating.
I think the most helpful review below is unsurprisingly the most considered one, by concentricbrainwaves. I also agree that having an amber rating would be helpful, and in the case of the daily mail, would probably be appropriate. This is really my only negative - the overall rating is not as useful as it should be and to get genuinely useful ratings you will need to view the details 9-point breakdown. To make the overall rating more useful it should only be possible to get green overall with a higher score than 6/9 - probably 8/9
Furthermore - rather than criticise newsguard for changing the rating for the daily mail from red to green (as they recently did), I admire their openness to change. The mail previously rated less well for openness, probably because when contacted by newsguard originally they weren't forthcoming with the information requested, and deservedly got rated badly for openness. Once the mail made this information available newsguard rightly changed their rating.
I think the most helpful review below is unsurprisingly the most considered one, by concentricbrainwaves. I also agree that having an amber rating would be helpful, and in the case of the daily mail, would probably be appropriate. This is really my only negative - the overall rating is not as useful as it should be and to get genuinely useful ratings you will need to view the details 9-point breakdown. To make the overall rating more useful it should only be possible to get green overall with a higher score than 6/9 - probably 8/9