Three US legislators have urged the government to strengthen oversight of the “NewsBreak App,” the largest news application downloaded in the United States. Despite the company cutting ties with its Chinese parent company, it still maintains extensive connections with China. The company has also been accused of disseminating fake news written by artificial intelligence (AI) tools.
According to Reuters, on the eve of last Christmas, NewsBreak published a report titled “Christmas Massacre in Bridgeton, New Jersey, Town Gun Violence Soars,” about a shooting incident. However, there was no such incident in Bridgeton. The local police department refuted the AI-written article as “utter nonsense” on Facebook on December 27.
Since 2021, NewsBreak has been involved in at least 40 cases where it has had negative impacts on local communities by using fictitious names, disseminating false information through AI tools, among other unethical practices. It has also been sued for copyright infringement by competitors, with several cases being settled.
Headquartered in Mountain View, California, NewsBreak has offices in Beijing and Shanghai. Reuters interviewed seven former employees of the company, with five stating that most of the algorithm development work for the application was done at the Chinese offices. In 2017, the company was praised by Chinese officials for effectively spreading Communist Party propaganda.
However, in response to Reuters’ inquiry regarding these allegations, NewsBreak emphasized that it is an American company and any claims to the contrary are incorrect.
Legislators have expressed concerns over NewsBreak’s relationships with Chinese investors and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman and Democratic Senator Mark Warner stated in an interview that “beyond unbridled, man-made news, what is even more frightening is the close relationship this company has with hostile foreign governments.”
“This is yet another example of how technology from worrisome countries poses a serious threat to us… This also serves as a wake-up call that we need a comprehensive approach to address this threat – we simply cannot win at the ‘Whack-a-Mole’ game with a single company.”
Senior Democratic member of the House Committee on the Communist Party Raja Krishnamoorthi raised concerns about NewsBreak’s ties to its former major shareholder “Phoenix Media,” closely linked to the CCP while discussing the Chinese parent company “Yidian Zixun.” He remarked, “This highlights a serious issue with NewsBreak, its historical relationships with entities aiding the CCP and media closely associated with the CCP.”
Krishnamoorthi emphasized that Americans have the right to demand full transparency from news publishers regarding any relationship with the CCP, especially when using opaque algorithms and artificial intelligence tools to produce news.
As a private startup, NewsBreak’s primary investors are Francisco Partners, a private equity firm based in San Francisco, and IDG Capital headquartered in Beijing. In February this year, IDG Capital was listed by the US Department of Defense as one of several Chinese companies suspected of collaborating with the CCP military.
Republican Representative Elise Stefanik stated that IDG Capital’s investment in NewsBreak indicates that the application deserves closer scrutiny. She remarked, “We cannot allow our foreign adversaries to access data of American citizens and use it as a weapon against US interests.”
NewsBreak was launched in the US in 2015 as a subsidiary of the Chinese news aggregation application “Yidian Zixun.” It split from its parent company in 2019 but its core still originates from China. Jeff Zheng, the founder of both companies, currently serves as the CEO of NewsBreak.
Both companies share a patent for the “Interest Engine” algorithm registered in the US in 2015. This algorithm recommends news content based on user interests and location.
NewsBreak claims to provide free real-time local news to over 50 million users monthly. It publishes news from media outlets such as Reuters, Fox, AP, and CNN, and uses the internet to gather news from various sources, rewriting them with the assistance of AI.