Fake News peddlers noticed that they’re not trusted and found what they think of as an ingenuous way of re-establishing this trust – by marking their content with Trust Indicators, also called Truth Indicators (1). The notorious Poynter Institute, which oversees a group of self-appointed fact-checkers, says:
The project’s Truth Indicators will be placed on news sites as well as in search results. They are meant to provide a layer of assurance to readers about the content they’re looking at.
The Trust/Truth Indicators have computer codes that allow search engines and “social media” sites to recognize and give preferential treatment to that features these indicators. Each member of the GFTM (Google, Facebook, Twitter, and Microsoft) monopoly has started using them or openly threatened their customers and partners by announcing the intent to do so (Facebook, Google), in violation of the anti-trust laws.
Craig Newmark (founder of craigslist), Craig Newmark Philanthropies, Google, the Democracy Fund, the Knight Foundation, and the Markkula Foundation have taken the responsibility for funding this project (2). It’s hosted by publicly funded Santa Clara University but is global in its ambitions and includes participants from Germany, Italy, and other countries. The project claims being non-partisan but is a hyper-partisan in fact. Its participants span the gamut from far left publications like Mother Jones to the anti-Trump non entities like the Independent Journal Review, alleged by Wikipedia to be founded by former Republican staffers in 2012.