US Legislators Urge Further Research On NewsBreak News Application

Member of the US House of Representatives from the Republican Party, How come Stefanik (right) (photo: x @RepStefonic)

JAKARTA - Three members of the United States (US) legislature called for a stricter investigation into NewsBreak, a popular news aggregation app in the United States. This comes after Reuters reported that NewsBreak has origins from China and has used artificial intelligence (AI) to produce misinformation.

Reuters reports are based on previously unreported court documents related to copyright infringement, termination and desist (cease-and-desist) emails, and company memos in 2022 expressing concerns about "reports made with AI." The document identifies at least 40 examples where the use of AI tools by NewsBreak has an impact on the communities they want to serve.

Senator Mark Warner, a Democrat who leads the US Intelligence Committee, said, "The more terrifying thing than companies dealing with uncontrolled artificial news is companies that have close ties to hostile foreign governments."

"This is another example of the serious threat posed by the technology of the countries of concern. It is also an important reminder that we need a holistic approach to address this threat - we cannot continuously react to individual companies."

The legislative members are concerned about NewsBreak's current and past relationships with Chinese investors, as well as the existence of companies in China, where many of their technicians are.

Meanwhile NewsBreak said it was an American company. "NewsBreak is a US company and it's always been. The opposite statement is not true," said a spokesman for the company.

However, Reuters reported that NewsBreak was launched in the US in 2015 as a subsidiary of Yidian, China's news aggregation app. The two companies were founded by Jeff Zheng, CEO of NewsBreak, and they shared US patents registered in 2015 for the "Interest Engine" algorithm, which recommends news content based on user interests and locations.

The Reuters report also found that Yidian in 2017 received praise from ruling Communist Party officials in China for his efficiency in spreading government propaganda. However, Reuters found no evidence that NewsBreak censored or produced news that benefited the Chinese government.

US House of Representatives member King Krishnatasthi, a prominent Democrat on the House of Representatives' special committee on China, said, "This report raises serious questions about NewsBreak, its historical relationship with entities that help the Chinese Communist Party (PKC), and the media regarding China."

"Americans have rights to 'full transparency' about any connection to PKC from news distributors, particularly with regard to the use of 'unclear algorithms' and AI devices to generate news," Krishna tandhi added.

Meanwhile, US House Speaker Stefanik, a Republican, said IDG Capital's support for NewsBreak showed that the app "needs to be monitored more closely."

"We cannot allow our foreign enemy to access American citizen data to be used against American interests," he said.

NewsBreak is a major-backed private startup company by private equity company San Francisco Partners based in San Francisco and Beijing-based IDG Capital. IDG Capital was previously included in the list of dozens of Chinese companies that the Pentagon said were suspected of working closely with the Chinese military.

IDG Capital denied the allegations and said it had no ties to the Chinese military. They also declined to comment on the reaction of US legislative members.