Misinformation
Conduct Screen Harmful Products
Systematic spread of false information, propaganda, or content designed to mislead or manipulate public understanding
18 companies currently excluded under this screen
Excluded Companies (18 total)
Showing 18 of 18 companies excluded under this screen.
| Ticker | Company | Reason |
|---|---|---|
| DJT | TRUMP MEDIA & TECHNOLOGY GROUP CORP | Trump Media & Technology Group Corp is the parent company of Truth Social, a social media platform founded and chaired by former President Donald Trump. The platform’s core purpose and its primary user base are intrinsically linked to the systematic spread of election-related misinformation and propaganda. Research documented that during the first week of January 2021, when Trump was banned from several major platforms, election-related misinformation online declined by 73 percent, illustrating the direct impact of his communications. Truth Social was subsequently launched as a venue explicitly designed to host and amplify such content without the content moderation policies employed by other platforms. The company’s flagship product is built around a user who has been repeatedly fact-checked for spreading false claims, including about mail-in voting and the COVID-19 pandemic, and who has weaponized social media to incite violence. Academic studies have analyzed Trump’s Twitter content as propaganda, demonstrating how his behavior nudged the sharing of COVID-19 misinformation. Truth Social operates as the primary channel for this activity, providing the infrastructure for the continued, unchecked dissemination of false information designed to mislead public understanding and undermine democratic processes. |
| KO | Coca-Cola Company (The) | Coca-Cola has been the subject of multiple legal actions and public allegations concerning misleading environmental claims, a practice commonly known as greenwashing. In September 2024, a dismissed false advertising lawsuit against the company was revived by a federal appeals court; the complaint specifically accused Coca-Cola of greenwashing by marketing its plastic bottles as “100% recycled” when they contained material from non-recycled sources. This followed a 2023 complaint from consumer bodies in multiple countries alleging the company made misleading claims about plastic water bottles being “100% recycled.” This pattern extends to the company’s broader public communications strategy. A 2025 analysis by philosophers cited Coca-Cola as a case study in how corporations use factual research to mislead the public, arguing the company’s goal was “distraction”—to divert attention from the environmental impact of its single-use plastic bottles by funding studies on recycling. This activity is contemporaneous with ongoing litigation, such as an October 2024 lawsuit filed by Los Angeles County against Coca-Cola for its significant role in plastic pollution. |
| NWS | News Corporation Class B | News Corporation, through its media properties including Fox News, The Wall Street Journal, and the New York Post, has been a central and influential actor in the systematic spread of misinformation. Its outlets have repeatedly promoted false narratives on critical public issues, most notably by amplifying disinformation about the 2020 U.S. presidential election and the safety and efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines. This pattern extends to climate science, where Fox News has consistently provided a platform for climate denialism. The company's conduct has had demonstrable real-world consequences. A 2021 study by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania found that exposure to Fox News was associated with lower COVID-19 vaccination rates. Furthermore, Fox News agreed to a $787.5 million settlement with Dominion Voting Systems in 2023 to resolve a defamation lawsuit concerning the network's propagation of false claims of election fraud. This legal action underscored the institutional role of News Corp properties in creating and disseminating propaganda designed to mislead the public. |
| NWSA | News Corporation Class A | News Corporation (Class A shares) is the Murdoch family's publishing and media empire (Wall Street Journal, New York Post, HarperCollins, news.com.au). Same controlling family as Fox Corporation. The Murdoch family holds ~39% voting control via super-voting shares across both entities. News Corp's UK tabloid arm (The Sun, defunct News of the World) was at the center of the phone-hacking scandal — ~$1.5 billion in settlements to 1,300+ claimants, including a January 2025 settlement with Prince Harry in which News UK admitted "serious intrusion" into his private life. The New York Post and Fox News (editorially linked through Murdoch ownership) amplified false 2020 election claims that led to the $787.5M Dominion settlement at sister company Fox Corp. Academic research (University of Pennsylvania, 2021) links Fox News exposure to lower COVID-19 vaccination rates. The WSJ editorial page has been a persistent platform for climate denialism. Misinformation is a structural feature of the Murdoch media ecosystem. |
| GIS | General Mills, Inc. | General Mills has been excluded for its systematic role in spreading misinformation regarding the nutritional and health impacts of its products. The company has a documented history of funding and disseminating research that obscures the health risks of ultra-processed foods and sugary cereals, particularly those marketed to children. This pattern includes funding academic research and front groups that downplay the links between sugar consumption and chronic diseases like obesity and type 2 diabetes. The company has also engaged in marketing campaigns for children's cereals that make health claims not supported by independent nutritional science, contributing to public confusion about healthy eating. Despite public commitments to nutrition, the company's core business model continues to rely on marketing sugary, processed foods, and its advocacy efforts have historically opposed stricter public health regulations and clearer food labeling that would counter consumer misinformation. |
| SG | SWEETGREEN INC | Sweetgreen publicly pledged to become carbon neutral by 2027 while simultaneously taking actions that contradict that commitment. In 2024 the company added steak to its menu, directly increasing the carbon intensity of its operations. According to Sweetgreen's own reporting, total carbon emissions increased roughly 26% between 2021 and 2022, with food-related Scope 3 emissions jumping approximately 35%, even as the company was marketing its carbon neutrality pledge. Mercy for Animals and environmental critics have labeled this greenwashing. Sweetgreen claims regenerative farming practices and carbon offsets will mitigate the impact of adding beef, but has not published hard data comparing the carbon footprint of its "regenerative" beef to conventional beef. The executive director of Project Drawdown publicly criticized offset schemes as "really problematic." The gap between Sweetgreen's sustainability branding and its business decisions constitutes material misinformation to consumers. |
| XOM | Exxon Mobil Corporation | Peer-reviewed analysis of 180 ExxonMobil communications found the company systematically deployed tobacco-industry rhetorical tactics to mislead the public about climate science — framing climate change as uncertain, individualizing responsibility onto consumers, and constructing a "Fossil Fuel Savior" narrative (Supran & Oreskes 2017, Environmental Research Letters; Supran & Oreskes 2021, One Earth). Between 1998 and 2021, the company funded a network of at least 43 climate-denial organizations including the Heartland Institute, the George C. Marshall Institute, and the American Enterprise Institute (UCS 2007; DeSmog). The discrepancy between internal scientific knowledge and public messaging is now empirically established: a 2023 Science paper quantitatively demonstrated that Exxon's internal climate models were as accurate as independent academic projections, while the company publicly funded doubt about the same science its researchers had confirmed. |
| META | Meta Platforms, Inc. | Meta's platforms have been documented by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the UN as enabling and amplifying hate speech and incitement to violence against Tigrayan, Rohingya, and Palestinian populations. In Ethiopia, Amnesty found Meta's failure to moderate contributed to atrocities against Tigrayans. In Myanmar, the UN fact-finding mission cited Facebook as playing a "determining role" in the Rohingya genocide. For Palestine, HRW documented systematic censorship of Palestinian content while allowing incitement against Palestinians; 7amleh found Meta reduced moderation certainty thresholds to 25% for Palestine-related content. Meta ran IDF drone recruitment ads and allowed leaked internal data showing Israeli government censorship requests were granted at high rates. |
| FOXA | Fox class A | Fox Corporation (Class A shares) settled with Dominion Voting Systems for $787.5 million in April 2023 — the largest known media defamation settlement in U.S. history — after Fox News broadcast false claims about rigged voting machines in the 2020 election. Internal discovery documents showed hosts and executives (including Rupert Murdoch) knew the claims were false but aired them to retain viewers. A second defamation suit from Smartmatic ($2.7 billion) remains pending as of 2026, alleging the same pattern across 66 broadcasts. News Corp UK subsidiary also paid ~$1.5 billion in phone-hacking settlements (1,300+ claimants), including a 2025 settlement with Prince Harry acknowledging "serious intrusion." Misinformation is structurally embedded in the business model. |
| PHM | PULTEGROUP INC | PulteGroup terminated a former employee following an internal investigation into their use of multiple anonymous Twitter accounts to attack members of the company’s founding family. A subsequent shareholder lawsuit, filed in May 2023, sought the full release of the investigative documents, alleging a need for transparency regarding the company’s handling of the matter. The company’s public statements confirm the misconduct involved the systematic use of false online personas to propagate attacks. |
| IMG | CIMG INC | CIMG has engaged in a pattern of "strategic pivots" (coffee to "Digital Health" to "AI Marketing" to "Computing Power" to "Bitcoin Reserve") accompanied by high-value contract announcements (e.g., $124M computing power deal Jan 2026) lacking verifiable primary source documentation. Narrative-driven business model with 2024 settlement regarding undisclosed employment claims suggests systematic use of market disclosures to mask deteriorating financial core. |
| JW.A | John Wiley and Sons Inc Class A | Wiley's subsidiary Hindawi was forced to retract over 8,000 compromised articles due to "systemic manipulation" of the peer-review process by "paper mills." This represents a fundamental failure in the company's primary product — verified information. The resulting "publishing pause" and loss of journal indexing in major databases (Web of Science) demonstrate a lack of credible oversight over information quality. |
| DDC | DDC ENTERPRISE LTD | DDC aggressively markets itself as a "plant-based" and "healthy lifestyle" brand to Gen Z/Millennial consumers. However, its portfolio includes brands like MengWei and Yujia Weng producing traditional meat-based ready-meals. Its 2026 investor communications prioritize "Bitcoin Treasury" performance over food sustainability metrics, creating disconnect between marketing and actual capital allocation. |
| FOX | Twenty-First Century Fox, Inc. | Fox Corporation agreed to pay $787.5 million (April 2023) to settle Dominion Voting Systems' defamation lawsuit over Fox News broadcasts of false claims about 2020 election fraud; hosts and executives privately acknowledged the claims were false while continuing to air them to retain audience; Murdoch family controls ~39% of votes via News Corp super-voting shares |
| LIF | LIFE360 INC | In March 2024, Life360 experienced a massive data breach exposing personal information of 442,519 customers (names, emails, phone numbers) via an unsecured API endpoint. The company's "Family Safety" marketing narrative is fundamentally at odds with its failure to implement basic security protocols like rate-limiting and input validation. |
| NMAX | NEWSMAX INC | Dominion v. Newsmax (judge ruled false content established April 2025; settled $67M August 2025) + Smartmatic v. Newsmax (settled $40M September 2024); Newsmax IPO on NYSE March 31, 2025; internal docs show host asked "How long are we going to play along with election fraud?" while channel continued broadcasting fraud claims. |
| RUM | Rumble Network | Rumble Inc operates a video-sharing platform with minimal content moderation that has become a hub for election misinformation, COVID conspiracy theories, and QAnon content. Platform design permits content banned on other platforms. Documented by Pew Research, Fortune, and Columbia Journalism Review. |
| TMDX | TRANSMEDICS GROUP INC | Scorpion Capital report (January 2025) alleges TransMedics concealed data on rejected organs and misrepresented clinical outcomes. Pattern of misleading investors and regulators about organ viability rates. |
The Naughty List
A digest of changes to our exclusion list — new additions, removals, and the evidence behind them. We review the list continuously as new evidence surfaces.
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