The Publicis Groupe - one of the world's largest PR firms1 that represents major companies within the technology, pharmaceutical and banking industries - recently agreed to pay a $350 million settlement over claims that its false and misleading marketing contributed to the opioid epidemic.
"New York will receive nearly $19.2 million from the total agreement, according to the state's consent order with Publicis Health. The highest settlement amounts were allocated to California, Florida and Texas, which respectively received $34.4 million, $24.1 million and $21.6 million."
As detailed in "New Thought Police NewsGuard Is Owned by Big Pharma," Publicis was the lead investor among a group of 18 that helped make NewsGuard a reality.
Like Publicis, NewsGuard's primary role is to deceive the public about what is true and what is not.
Getting back to NewsGuard, as bad as it may be to receive a poor NewsGuard rating, that's not the end of your troubles if you're in the alternative media space, because NewsGuard also has a tool called BrandGuard that sends out "Exclusion lists" to advertisers.
"The question of conflicts arises because Publicis represents a range of corporate and government clients, including Pfizer - whose COVID vaccine has been questioned by some news outlets that have received low scores. NewsGuard has faced mounting criticism that rather than serving as a neutral public service against online propaganda, it instead acts as an opaque proxy for its government and corporate clients to stifle views that simply run counter to their own interests. The criticism finds support in internal documents, such as the NewsGuard proposal to Twitter, which this reporter obtained during Twitter Files reporting last year, as well as in government records and discussions with independent media sites targeted by the startup."
Publicis is part of an enormous network that includes international drug companies, fact checkers and "Credibility raters" like NewsGuard, Google and other search engines, Microsoft, antivirus software companies like Trend Micro, public libraries, schools, the banking industry, the U.S. State Department and Department of Defense, the World Health Organization and the World Economic Forum.
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