Florida bill blacklists groups like NewsGuard from doing business with state agencies
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – New Florida legislation bars Florida agencies from entering contracts with entities that “advise” the censorship or blacklisting of news sources, such as NewsGuard.
Rep. Philip Griffitts, R-Panama City Beach, filed HB 939 Tuesday. Florida Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis touted the bill, specifically calling out NewsGuard as a target of the proposal.
“We’ve got state agencies throughout Florida trying to reach the public to provide critical services, and we need to make sure advertisers who partner with the state are doing their very best to reach the specific groups,” Patronis said. “NewsGuard’s technology, however, is working its way into the advertising world, and effectively blacklisting media outlets who don’t measure up to their ratings.”
NewsGuard scrutinizes media sources and after conducting investigations and analyses into those sources, the group compiles a report and a grade meant to reflect the news outlet’s credibility and trustworthiness.
The group inquired into Florida’s Voice in 2022, reporting a “62 out of 100.”
The report contained several inaccuracies, such as alleging Florida’s Voice does not disclose its owner, Brendon Leslie, and opinionated claims that Florida’s Voice does not “responsibly” transmit information and does not “regularly” correct “errors.”
“The impacts are two-fold: companies and governments who want to reach certain groups may never have the ability to because certain news outlets, especially Conservative ones, will be eliminated from consideration based on NewsGuard’s input,” Patronis said.
“Second, now we’ve got government dollars being used to affect certain narratives,” he said. “This is a new dystopian landscape where we’ve got big government, partnering with big business, in using NewsGuard to punish those that don’t parrot the government’s narrative.”
Patronis concluded he wants to ensure no Florida tax dollars go towards groups like NewsGuard.
The chief financial officer’s office also said the new proposal is similar to a federal proposal requiring the U.S. Department of Defense not use NewsGuard to “blacklist” media outlets.
The 27-page bill, entitled “Consumer Protection,” includes other provisions related to unclaimed property, insurance regulations, health insurance requirements and more.
