Bad News

This comes from Kim Komando:

"NewsBreak, the most downloaded news app in the U.S., with more than 50 million readers per month, has strong ties to Communist China.  A Reuters investigation shows the NewsBreak app is also packed with inaccurate stories (including some that appear to be totally made up by AI), content stolen from legit sources and fake bylines. This is bad, people.  NewsBreak is a privately owned company with offices in Mountain View, California, along with Beijing and Shanghai. It bills itself as “all things local” for American readers, but one of its primary backers is Beijing-based IDG Capital.

Never heard of it? Let me catch you up. In February, the Pentagon added IDG Capital to a list of Chinese companies said to be working directly with Beijing's military.  NewsBreak republishes news from sources like Reuters, Fox, the Associated Press and CNN. They used to republish my content and let me tell you, the traffic from it to my website was huge. NewsBreak stopped sharing my stuff when I started writing negatively about apps with ties to China. Coincidence? I don’t think so.

The rest of NewsBreak’s content is “written” by AI, with facts scraped from press releases and sites around the web. All this happens where half their staff works (about 200 people) — in their China-based offices. Their algorithm isn’t just choosing what stories make it in the app, by the way; it’s also influencing the angles of the coverage.

That’s a huge problem. When the parent company has a political agenda (i.e., China wants to destroy our commerce and influence votes), that trickles down into what you read."

<snipped>  "Now, if you’re concerned about the Chinese military having access to your info, there’s one thing to do: Perform a factory reset on your phone. I know, it’s an annoying process, but it’s the one way to be sure all the code and trackers you downloaded are wiped away."