a bit away. we need you to ensure the jewish voters helped to elect members of congress who will reflect our values. take action with us now and be sure to sign up and enjoying our next event for members on march 1 at 7:30 p.m. with formal michelle obama speech water -- speech writer and author. with that, we think the congressman and all of you for joining us today. i want to thank you for being with us today and we hope to see you all after. thank you. thank you. >> coming on c-span, the gun pressed secretary john kirby scheduled to give an update on the u.s. respond to the russia ukraine conflict like 15 minutes we will take you to the briefing as soon as it begins. we will take a look at a

conversation from this morning's washington journal. -- "washington journal". host: he serves as co-ceo of a news guard, new start tech.com. he explains what viewers will find if they go to that website. guest: there will find a description of a company that we started three years ago lift up the principle that every once in a while human intelligence is better than our official intelligence. we have 40 experienced journalist who read, review and write ratings and nutrition labels for the 7000 plus misinformation websites responsible for more than 95% of all engagement online in the united states and the countries in europe where we operate.

we apply nine specific apolitical standards to our ratings. nesn handled the difference between news opinion responsibly -- does it happen -- handled the difference between news opinion responsibly? doesn't explains who is behind the site? with those ratings, if you download our browser extension, it's time you look at a facebook feed or twitter feed, or do a bing search or google, you will see our red or green icon. if you hover over the icon, you will begin to read the nutrition label, which explains exactly how we apply the rating that we apply. host: why is it important that

journalists do this? why can't and a good this like some big tech companies rely on for this approach? guest: look at how that has worked out. nobody does anything. there are now four different companies that were the national rate the reliability of misinformation. there is facebook, twitter, then there is us. with facebook, twitter, google, it is an algorithm. it's secret is not transparent. if c-span or the new york times wanted to know how twitter and, google race there reality -- reliability, they will have no idea. if they got someone on the phone at facebook, the person will say we cannot tell you. if they did tell you, hubert rated more or less reliable than the "washington post". you would ask why, they would

say they cannot tell you because you will gain our system. all of our ratings are transparent. we always call for comment before we say anything bad about anyone, which is what any journalist does. algorithms do not call for comment. we want you to gain our system. we want a website to find corrections. as of today, as of 1800 of the 7000 plus sites we have graded have done something to improve their journalistic practices in order to get a high score from news guard and we love that. that is why we started the company. host: the news guard role, you have been analyzing information from russia and as it relates to the crisis in eastern europe. how is russia using media here that you have found and what areas are they pushing?

guest: they are using media to start a war or to justify a war. it is simple. some of the narratives are that the ukrainians are being persecuted by nazis, or the ukrainians --. a whole variety of permits have been posted online by rt, which used to be called russian today, but they changed the name to rt so no one know what it is. rt for example, is video service has a giant following on google. you know, they run ads which are financed by some of the most iconic american brands gone through programmatic advertising. that is the type of advertising done by a algorithm, so that -- a major soft drink company or a

retailer, your ad may appear on russian propaganda without you even knowing it. so, american companies are financing this stuff. one of the services we provide to ad agencies is we tell them, kind of filter out the disinformation sites from legitimate new sites. host: rt.com. this is the nutrition label from news guard. a 12.5 out of 100, proceed with caution is what is on the label. this website violates basic journalistic standards, including it does repeatedly publish wasp information, does not prevent information responsibly -- does not prevent information responsibly. it discloses its ownership and financing. it reveals who is in charge, including any possible conflict of interest. guest: some of the rt sites, i

think the one in germany that we rated, it might be friends, do not -- it might be friends, -- it might be france do not even expose ownership. if they adhere to one of the criteria, they get the check mark. that is why they do not get zero. host: rt.com news pass.com is what news guard focuses in a report. you can find online on news guard tech.com. let me bring our viewers to call in and join the conversation we have got him with us for the next 25 minutes or so. it is, (202) 748-8001, for republicans. (202) 748-8000 for democrats. as russia using some new size to

push some information? guest: what happens often is, they will start a myth on their side and then some other sites in the u.s. in germany, u.k., other countries that we operate, those will pick it up and they will cite rt, or site task. they will say, this is really interesting it has appeared online. we thought we should tell you about it. it is a real disinformation campaign. what is new is, lots of wars happen started based on misinformation and disinformation, or at least have them propelled by that. here, it is just blatant and it is right out front. we start seeing the stuff that ukraine, as far back as i think a year ago. you know, this is a sustained campaign. what is really disheartening about it, again, to come back to the financing of it.

if you look at the ads on task, or the ads on sputnik to take two examples, you will see a logo at the top right of each of those at. those could be from name your favorite american brand. for example, i was looking at task this morning, and wild birds, the sneaker and shoe companies were all over task. the people cannot possibly know that they are financing task. if you look at the right hand logo, those ads are delivered by google. google has the largest advertising platform for programmatic advertising. they apparently do not care. they can stop those ads to task as soon as they hear my voice this morning, they should stop it if they wanted to. but they do not want to. they are making money. there is a war in ukraine. host: one question before we get

the callers. a stepping back from this specific conflict, eastern europe, in the larger media universe, who are what if you found in the -- is the biggest disturb it up online use misinformation -- is the most -- biggest distributor in online misinformation? guest: it surprises when we started the company. we got most of it be the kind of political propaganda that we are talking about this morning. the larger portion has to do with health misinformation. that was even before the pandemic. the reason for that is, there is so much money in health care hoaxes. because to go to a health care site and there is a whole network of network hoaxes.

if you go there, they will send you a subscription because they say it will cure cancer. you can cancel your appointment with your oncologist and buy some apricots. obviously, with covid, that stuff is accelerated exponentially. that has been the biggest of surprises. in terms of political propaganda, probably the most successful is rt on youtube, which of course is the google product. host: one of our viewers on twitter the -- wanting me to ask you work you got qualified to determine what is or isn't a false? your background mark guest: i have been a journalist for more years than i would like to count as the would probably now. i not all of my? what is qualified is what we do is look at specific standards,

journalistic practice. there isn't a republican way or democratic way to have a corrections policy if you're running a news organization. you make your corrections candidly and quickly. that is one of the things that we look at. so, what we do is we have 18 about -- a team of about 40 journalists who have all experienced, all come from different backgrounds. typically, every site we rate goes through five or six hands, starting with a junior person then a senior person, then a editor, then senior editor. then my partner to the final edit on each site that we do. nothing happens without us calling the site for comment. if they do comment, we include their comment. it is very often they will explain something to us that we

are about to get wrong when we publish and they will point out, we have a corrections policy, we made corrections. you do not see it on our website. here it is. we would say, thank you very much. you're right, we are wrong. it is not a matter of whether i am qualified to make political judgment, it is a matter of whether our team is qualified to publish these completely transparent ratings to give comment from everybody who reads them, and to be completely accountable and transparent if we make mistakes. host: this is christopher from oklahoma. democrats. good morning. caller: good morning. my question is about, you're talking about abba rhythms in social media. i was thinking about -- algorithms in social media.

i was thinking about when facebook got caught using algorithms in this country to bump negative hopes and negative -- negative hoax and material up. it pertained that, how can you check back at stuff that is difficult to prove that cause impression -- depression or anxiety. these types of things. guest: i do not think you can do it with legislation. i am uncomfortable with the government making decisions, whether it is content online, content in a newspaper, radio or television. i think works best, giving people information about the

sources they are about to read, or the services they -- or the sources they are about to see. that is what we do. that is why librarians love the service. we are marked in -- we are more than 800 libraries around the world your people go to public libraries as a major source of getting broadband. they do not have broadband at home and they leave -- use the broadband. these programs installed it on their computers. you will see our rating. it does not block anything. librarians do not want to block any people from reading anything. they just want to provide information about what will our reading. the way we would like to think about it is, right now if you walk into a library, you would see books neatly arranged

according to subject matter, magazines arranged according to the subject matter, he could pick up the book and you could read the book jacket and a learned things of the author, learned some things about the publisher. who is the publisher? a librarian can tell you well, if you're going to read this book about world economics, it is written by a nobel prize winner who happens to be liberal, conservative, you may want to read this other book to get the right balance. librarians explained to you, give you information about your sources. well imagine instead, if you walk into a library and the only thing you had were one trillion pieces of paper just flying around in the air, you can't want out of the year and he started reading it. you do not know who wrote it, you do not know who is financing it, you do not know their credentials.

that is what news start does. it does the work for librarians for the internet. that i think is much more effective than having the government say, you need to have this kind of algorithm are that kind of algorithm. whether what you are reading is causing impression or making -- the person -- depression or making you want to go out to be violent, i think it has been established over the years that the government interfering to protect people from how they might react is not the solution that we favor in the united states. host: you said majority of people seek out information that they want to believe and want to hear. so many will diss -- dismiss your ratings. guest: that is true in many cases. i work -- i wrote a book a few years ago, i wrote the stunning

pieces of data i had in the book. at that time, i guess it was 2018. something like 10 to 15% of all americans thought that 9/11 was an inside job by the bush administration. another 10 to 15% of americans thought that barack obama was not born in the united states. so, the people who were on those fridges up believe or disbelief, you probably are not going to do very much to convince them of anything other than what they are already going to themselves. if everybody else in the middle you can inform, and if you look at the reports of the people who have participated in the insurrection of january 6, what you see large is that most of those people were people who were ordinary american citizens. you know, a fireman from staten island. there was a construction worker

in ohio. they just read stuff online and started going down a rabbit hole and ended up with extreme beliefs that they did not start with. the way to deal with that, i think is not the government interfering, it is getting those people more information about what they are reading before they go down those rabbit holes. host: you might be the first author to reference a book he wrote without mentioning its title. let me do it for you. i think you're talking about the "people and forces beyond -- behind america". guest: i try not to promote those, especially if it is three years after they were on the bestseller list. host: republican line. in morning.

do you have a comment or question? caller: i just wanted to say that maybe six months ago with my wife because the bottom line is that without getting in detail with myself, i used two work for the government. when i would do and i'm asking you, hey, these people that you are going through and you're looking at and determining what is misinformation. how about we identify those individuals, right? then they have a certain inspector general or whoever who comes out and checks those journalists, then they could possibly lose their license based on misinformation. so, --. host: do you think they should be? caller: yes.

host: what do you think? i'm actually reminded of an experience i had when i started the court tv cable channel. we wanted to cover a certain trial. the judge asked as to write an essay about how we would cover the trial and how our coverage of the trial would enhance confidence in the justice system. i called the judge politely and told them if you require us to write the essay i was going to sue. the government should not be making those kinds of judgments. even though i am sure we would have written a wonderful essay. host: peter in florida. independent. caller: thank you for taking my call. i see this as the private sector doing its own 1984.

i will give you some examples. they in the incubators. -- babies in the incubators. that was a lie, but under him it will be true. the whole entire media was manufacturing consent under his rationale. that would be considered since her news. i could go on -- that would be considered censored news. that is the scary part when he talked about rt news, i enjoyed listening to rt news on my ipad while i watch cnn on current events that unfold. i think the american people should have that. if you got a problem with an rt news or -- show it to the people. do not ban it. you want to ban information. host: you want to ban information? caller: i do not think the caller has heard a single word i said.

i said quite the opposite. i said if you like rt news, even if you believe rt news, that is your right and nobody should ban it. people should know that rt news is controlled by vladimir putin. that is a fact. it is just the way people should know that c-span was started by the cable television industry. that is a fact. i am not in favor of banning anything, quite the opposite. if you supply information about sources, what you are saying is that all of these sources should exist, it is just people should want to know what they want to know what is behind the sources, not that they are nefarious, not that they are terrible, gestate the facts. -- just state the facts. host: lawyers are the sources for many news sources. what is being done to ensure they are neutral and factual?

guest: i think the marketplace makes them as neutral and factual as they can be because they are licensed by news organizations all over the world. if they lose the confidence of those news organizations, the business is going to suffer and -- is going to suffer. they have all sorts of imbalances in place. they are governed by a trust in a specific mission and specific values that the trust has to enforce. you know, they are not perfect. everybody makes mistakes. the question is, what does a writer do when it makes mistakes? it corrects the mistake. what rt does, or what info does, or what natural news does come with a cover up the mistake. in fact, they perpetuate the mistake. host: to texas, this is willy in

the lone star state. republican. good morning. caller: good morning c-span. i never you stand because you politically, he used the word insurrection to describe what i and most people was coming out. most people believe it was a peaceful protest on january 6. that went awfully arrive. really, really bad actors. the majority of the people who were there at the capital are doing their civic duty by voicing their opinion about elections. second thing, where does a news guard stand and where did they stand when it came to the new york post? who basically just said the

biting issue with a laptop at all -- biden issue was misinformation and they took the story off of twitter and you cannot share it, you cannot read it, cannot do anything of the sort. they knocked twitter out of the account. rather, twitter not the u.s. opposed out of the account. please, come back with a answer to either of those two questions. sure. i will answer them both in reverse order. the new yours hoaxed -- the new york post gets a green rating. we do not block anything. i hope that is an answer to your second question. the second question, i have to say, respectfully, we were not watching the same television news on january 6. i saw hundreds of people overrunning the capital,

breaking windows, attacking police officers and all for the purpose of blocking the confirmation of the election results. i think it is fair to say that characterizing that as an insurrection is not unreasonable. host: both on capitol hill are concerned about misinformation ahead of elections. lady coming midterm -- in the head up midterm elections, for viewers who may be concerned about misinformation you let u.s. media, what would be your recommendation? guest: be careful about your news sources. for example, there is now a whole network of websites posing as independent local news operations. it is called carrier news network.

they have a website in arizona called the "copper carrier". if you read a section on their website, they say they were founded to fill the void left by the decline of local newspapers through independent nonprofit. they want to provide you the facts. you know, important local news that you need. turns out, that they are financed by the liberal, chronic political action committee. they were founded for the sole purpose of boosting local candidates, democratic candidates who are running for election election as they are posing as local. to me as it really insidious and undermining everything that i believe about journalism -- about how journalism is opposed to the -- is supposed to be.

be careful about your sources. even nonprofit local news sources. the great thing about the internet is like a publisher. the bad thing about the internet is that everybody could be a publisher. host: we will try to get one or two more phone calls in the time we have left. democrat. good morning. caller: hello. i just wanted to relay one story about these conspiracy theories. they are everywhere. they are even given to your children in school. my son is now 30. when he was in the fifth grade, he came home and told me that lbj had orchestrated a murder of john f. kennedy. his teacher told him this. naturally, i went right down to the school. then in high school he gets there and his science teacher informs him that 911 was an inside job.

ok. so, it is even educators. it is all over. it is even in the hospitals where i work. unbelievable conspiracy theorists voiced by supposedly educated people. number two, i want to say. my question is, what are we going to do about the two different set avenues. -- up news. for example, i am a liberal, i watched cnn, msn. my republican friend watches only fox and i do not know who else. but when we compare notes, nothing i have heard compares to what they have heard from the border, to opioid debts, to the work that has been probably started today, and we are educated, college-educated people. we are in our 60's. please help me. guest: that is a perfect summary

of the dilemma that faces the united states. it used to be in the 60's, the advances in technology produce broadcast television. everybody pretty much watched the same news. we all watched the kennedy assassination together. we all watched reports of the lunar landing or the vietnam war. watched the same news. the bad part about that, it was the three broadcast networks basically. now advances in technology enable us to watch quarters of the news that make us uncomfortable. so as of the color sets, liberals can watch msnbc. conservatives can watch fox . they can go to their facebook groups.

they can get the feed they want to look at. that is a giant threat to any civil society to any democracy. the only hope is, that at some point, people would get disgusted with that and look to political leaders and business leaders who will say that we all need to meet somewhere in the middle appeare there will . there will always be people on the fringes. now it is dominated. they are using, as the people said, there isn't a source of news that we can all agree on. imagine if we watched the loom landing today. whether it was fox, or oa in. some would say that as a fraud, biden did not really achieve that. msnbc might have a whole different take on it.

nobody would agree even on the most basic fact of the most basic news event. so, i share the caller's concern about that. host: it seems like a good place to make a pause for today. looking for to having you on again down the world. it is news guard tech.com. it is where you can find news guard, the co-ceo there. thank you so much. on the economic front, one of the stories we didn't get to is the impact of the crisis in eastern europe on stock market around the world. all three major investors dropped yesterday after the direct war of ukraine. it sent wall street railing. the average is 82 and a half points yesterday. with one point 4%. the s&p 500