Thread by @pepesgrandma

🔥🔥🔥Breaking! Florida based, official international fact checking org, is funded by the US State Dept! And it operates in the United States too! This is a massive scandal! The State Department, who legally can’t operate in the US, has been funding US fact checking since 2015! Yes, it’s earliest days!

The news orgs that operate under the IFCN flag, such as the Washington Post, do the leg work. Which then results in posts on Facebook etc being labeled and the algorithms throttling the post.

This official international fact checking org is also partnered with Google. Poynters IFCN was funded by the CIA linked, State Dept NED and Omidyar grants.

Recall Google initiated the first ever US censorship and expanded it globally by using the First Draft Consortium. First Draft also worked hand in hand with the IFCN. Poynters Politifact was in the First Draft network.

♦️Now check out this timeline of events.

April 2015 - First Draft Consortium started by Google

June 2015 - Official First Draft Announcement comes out. Along with its Google News Lab partnership announcement (obviously)

Aug 2015 - Google News Lab partners with Poynter

Sept 2015 - IFCN is launched by Poynter

Oct 2015 - Poynter launches IFCN with State Dept NED funding

Oct 2017 - Google news lab partners with IFCN specifically

Dec 2018 - Poynter acquires Politifact

♦️Next I’ll list some key quotes from IFCN’s beginnings:

Oct 21, 2015 - “Today marks the online launch of the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN) at Poynter. This informal network, a forum for fact-checkers from five continents, is born out of the desire to study and discuss fact-checking as a journalistic instrument worldwide.

The IFCN is supported by grants from the Omidyar Network and the National Endowment for Democracy.”

“Poynter's partnership with Google is the institute's first major alliance with a digital technology company.”

♦️ Now showing US links is easy.

“Led by the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN) at the Poynter Institute, FactChat is the first collaborative project to unite U.S. fact-checking organizations with two major Spanish-language news broadcasters to fight mis/disinformation during the 2020 presidential campaign.”

“Facebook users in the US and Germany can now flag articles they think are deliberately false, these will then go to third-party fact checkers signed up with the IFCN.

Those fact checkers come from media organisations like the Washington Post and websites such as the urban legend debunking site Snopes.

Another warning appears if users try to share the story, although Facebook doesn't prevent such sharing or delete the fake news story. The "fake" tag will however negatively impact the story's score in Facebook's algorithm, meaning that fewer people will see it pop up in their news feeds.”

“Alexios Mantzarlis at first led the IFCN:

Then he moved to GOOGLE NEWS LAB. And is now Principal, Google Trust & Safety Intelligence. As Director of the IFCN, he helped draft the fact-checkers' code of principles and shepherded a seminal partnership between fact-checkers and Facebook.”

♦️Now let’s head into Brazil:

- Cristina Tardáguila, NED FELLOW, Founder of Agência Lupa and was at Brazil misinfocon with Zommer. Both were GDI advisors. Cristina Tardáguila is the IFCN Associate Director.

- Laura Zommer is Zommer isn the board of the IFCN and Género & Numero from Brazil. She’s also the Executive and Editor-in-Chief at Chequeado, the first initiative of fact-checking and verification of public discourse in Latin America.

Knight Fellow Laura Zommer started Factchequeado, a journalism and education hub to stem disinfo flows in Spanish-language platforms in the US.

Factchequeado will use innovative approaches developed by Chequeado and Maldita in Latin America and Spain – introducing a WhatsApp tipline to involve audiences in fact-checking. Factchequeado is a collaborative alliance with Latino media and fact-checking orgs.

Sources plus more to follow.

Let’s begin with the International Fact Checking Network’s (IFCN) first days.

♦️Oct 2015 the IFCN was launched by Poynter with support from grants by the Omidyar Network and the National Endowment for Democracy.



♦️This is a September 2020 report, and funding still was from the State Dept NED and Omidyar but now included Soros funding etc.

Broadband Commission research report on ‘Freedom of Expression and Addressing Disinformation on the Internet’

The International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN, 2019a) was launched in September 2015 as a business unit within the non-profit journalism school Poynter Institute for Media Studies, based in St. Petersburg, Florida, U.S.. The Institute, which owns the Tampa Bay Times, launched IFCN to bring together fact-checkers worldwide and to promote good practices and knowledge exchange in the field.

The IFCN’s mission is to monitor trends, formats and policy-making about fact-checking worldwide, to publish regular articles about fact-checking, to promote training - both in person and online - as well as ensuring basic standards through the fact-checkers’ code of principles. On August 6th, 2020, IFCN had 79 verified active signatories of its code of principles, 14 verified signatories under renewal (IFCN, 2020d)

IFCN has received funding from the Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation, the Duke Reporters’ Lab, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Google, the National Endowment for Democracy, the Omidyar Network, the Open Society Foundations and the Park Foundation (IFCN, 2019d).

archive.is/RpKYc
web.archive.org/web/2023000000…

Please excuse both the Sept and Oct 2015 dates, in the top post, for the inception of the IFCN. The likely explanation is that most things are planned before they are announced.

Now back to sourcing the timeline.

This here 🧵 discusses Google starting the First Draft Coalition in April 2015. With the June 18, 2015 formal announcement. And only 2 days after Trump announced running.

Since we are on the subject of the CIA linked, and State Dept funded NED, First Draft Consortium founding orgs included the NED funded Bellingcat. Another founding org included Storyful Intelligence whose Global Managing Director was the founder of the UK 77th psyop brigade.

First draft worked massively with the IFCN and Poynters Politifact.

Now back to the IFCN sources.

🔥And this is what you call bringing the baby home. Massive document found right here with Google admitting everything! Google is synonymous with disinfo work!

Google News Lab created the First Draft Coalition in April 2015. Then announced it formally in June 2015.

In August 2015, Google News Lab partnered with Poynter who then on Sept/Oct 2015 created the IFCN. Conveniently, First Draft News worked heavily with the IFCN. Google later partnered with the IFCN itself.

♦️Here’s an article on Google partnering with Poynter in August 2015. And before IFCN was created. Dates are important!


♦️Now here’s the big document, Google admitting everything!

“Addressing disinfo is not something we can do on our own. The Google News Initiative also houses our products, partnerships, and programs dedicated to supporting news organizations in their efforts create quality reporting that displaces disinformation. This includes:

🔹Helping launch the First Draft Coalition (), a nonprofit that convenes news orgs and technology companies to tackle the challenges around combating disinformation
online – especially in the run-up to elections.

🔹Participating in and providing financial support to the Trust Project (), of which Google is a founding member and which explores how journalism can signal its trustworthiness online.
The Trust Project has developed eight indicators of trust that publishers can use to better convey why their content should be seen as credible, with promising results for the publishers who have trialed them.

🔹 Partnering with Poynter’s International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN), a nonpartisan organization gathering fact-checking organizations from the United States, Germany, Brazil, Argentina, South Africa, India, and more. In addition, we support the work of researchers who explore the issues of disinformation and trust in journalism by funding research at organizations like First Draft, the Oxford University’s Reuters News Institute, Michigan University’s Quello Center for Telecommunication Management law, and more.

archive.is/W2XKf
firstdraftnews.org
thetrustproject.org
web.archive.org/web/2019091500…

The Google Trust project mentioned above is what created the Trust Indicators used by Newsguard. And they partnered with Newsguard before it even went live.

This was slightly off topic, but you all need to understand how central Google was with everything.

Also the Disarm framework used by our DHS CISA and ran by rabid anti conservatives globally, was started by none other than Googles Newsgeist. (Long story, it’s a mess.)

Now back to the ICFN.

🔹February 12, 2018 Poynter Expands Fact-Checking Franchise by Acquiring PolitiFact.

“Though Poynter owns the Tampa Bay Times newspaper — which created the PolitiFact initiative in 2007 –the formal acquisition and relocation allows Poynter to expand its fact-check training and leadership in best practices, and to be engaged in the real time journalism that it teaches.

Poynter and PolitiFact have a history of collaboration and have worked together to secure grant funding.”



🔹Second photo - PolitiFact was also in the First Draft News Network. That photo was a listing of all of its members.

(Lupa, another member, is partnered with Brazil’s TSE aka Alexandre de Moraes.)archive.is/Y9fnb

The State Dept NED funded IFCN was involved in US elections. And I’m telling you, they were involved massively in Fact Checking globally starting in 2015. There’s lots of evidence to be had.

That WhatsApp stuff mentioned here involved Brazil and its TSE court with Alexandre de Moraes etc too.

“Led by the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN) at the Poynter Institute, FactChat is the first collaborative project to unite U.S. fact-checking organizations with two major Spanish-language news broadcasters to fight mis/disinformation during the 2020 presidential campaign. FactChat brings together U.S.-based journalists and fact-checkers in a bilingual alliance to give voters the information they need to make their decisions based on facts.

From Sept. 15, 2020 until the Inauguration Day in 2021, fact-checkers from AFP, Check Your Fact, , Lead Stories, MediaWise, PolitiFact, The Dispatch, The Washington Post Fact Checker, Science Feedback and USA Today will share their content with Telemundo and Univision. Both networks will translate the fact-checks to Spanish before republishing the content on their respective websites.
 
With support from WhatsApp, the IFCN will upload both versions into the FactChat chatbot. The system, developed by , is free for all WhatsApp users and features an easy-to-use interface available in both languages.”

FactCheck.org
Turn.io
archive.is/DfTd4

🔥This is even bigger yet. I forgot that in 2016 with the help of Google, Poynter and IFCN actually PARTNERED with First Draft News!

You see they started as a smaller First Draft Coalition and in 2016 they were expanded to be called First Draft News. If you look in this photo you will see Poynter IFCN as being a new partner.

Later, this partnership grew even larger.

Linkie


The linked post shows how Googles Olivia Ma and Steve Grove were responsible for the creation of the First Draft Coalition. And then later Googles Olivia Ma expanded it to include Poynter IFCN plus more. There’s pertinent info above that post too.archive.is/bzWzR

August 24, 2015 - Poynter Partners With Google News Lab and Society for Professional Journalists to Train Journalists in Digital Storytelling Tools

"This also represents a milestone for Poynter. This is the institute's first major partnership with a digital technology company, and it's a symbol of our strategic shift to focus our training efforts on storytelling in the digital age."

This partnership with the Google News Lab is the most recent in a series of other training alliances with major companies Poynter currently has in place.  Those include partnerships with the Gannett Co., Journal Media Group (formerly the E.W. Scripps Newspapers), the McClatchy Co., The Associated Press, National Geographic and Pioneer News Group.

The Google News Lab Trainers will include: Nicholas Whitaker, Media Outreach manager, Google News Lab; Kelly McBride, Poynter's Vice President of Academic Programs; Vanessa Schneider, Google's Geo Media Program Manager; Roy Peter Clark, Poynter Vice President and Senior Scholar and Vidisha Priyanka, Interactive Learning Producer for Poynter.

archive.is/W2XKf

IFCN is heavily involved in Brazil and with Alexandre de Moraes’s TSE.

For example, at Brazils Misinfocon, that was created by Googles Newsgeist, people from both the IFCN and TSE court were there.

- Laura Zommer - IFCN (former associate director)

- Cristina Tardáguila - IFCN board and NED fellow (State Dept Funded)

- Thiago Rondon - TSE

- Mediation by Natália Leal, Executive Director of Lupa. Lupa is partnered with the TSE court.

Additional bio info

CRISTINA TARDÁGUILA is a Ned fellow, Univision writer, and Founder of Brazil’s Lupa. Plus much more!



CRISTINA TARDÁGUILA Former Associate Director of IFCN



Laura Zommer - member of the Advisory Board of the IFCN. Founder of Factchequeado in the U.S. along with Clara Jimenez of Maldita. She is also the director and editor-in-chief at Chequeado, the first fact-checking organization in Argentina, Latin America and the Global South. Zommer was the creator of LatamChequea, the largest regional fact-checking network that brings together more than 30 media in 15 countries to fight disinformation and lies in the public discourse. She is a board member of Sembramedia and La Silla Vacía from Colombia and also member of the Advisory Board of the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN) and Género & Numero from Brazil.

archive.is/PUHau
web.archive.org/web/2024071106…
web.archive.org/web/2024052902…

There’s way too much info out there on the Florida based and State Dept NED funded IFCN. I’ll show a few interesting things.

In this case, a shady org in an Indian village censored a major conservative journalist, so answers were sought.

“A Google-Funded 'Fact Check' Team Appears to Be a Handful of Potentially Non-Existent Indians in an Impoverished Town Near Bangladesh.”

“There’s a handful of people (some of whom may not even exist) in a small town in India, being given grants by Google to censor news and social media posts in America and the Western world. They’re used by Facebook and Instagram as reliable actors, and frankly, I’m not sure any of them have any real journalistic experience or accreditation. Weird.”

The Healthy Indian Project is a member of the high-profile Poynter network called the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN), though two separate audits of its membership reveal concerns about non-partisanship, transparency, and the organization’s finances with a particular focus on a grant from the U.S.-based search engine Google

raheemkassam.substack.com/p/a-google-fun…