U.S. helps fund "disinformation" group that blacklists conservative news sites

If they can't stop the words, they'll try to stop the money.

In case you missed it …

• The New York City Health Department set up a “Misinformation Response Unit” to monitor “dangerous misinformation,” mostly about Covid vaccines, posted on social media.

• The University of Richmond removed the name of benefactor T.C. Williams from their law school after the board learned Williams had owned slaves. One of Williams’ descendants is now suing the school and demanding $3.6 billion, which he says is the current value of family donations.

• Ex-MSNBC host Krystal Ball says she had to get permission from the network’s president before criticizing Hillary Clinton on the air.

Dear Friends—

Could our government really be helping to fund an overseas group that works to scare advertisers away from conservative news sites? Yep, all under the banner of "disinformation.”

A group called the Global Disinformation Index recently released a list of online sites, classified by whether the group considers them a “disinformation” risk or not.

The problem is, as the Washington Examiner reports,

“Major ad companies are increasingly seeking guidance from purportedly "nonpartisan" groups claiming to be detecting and fighting online "disinformation." These same "disinformation" monitors are compiling secret website blacklists and feeding them to ad companies, with the aim of defunding and shutting down disfavored speech, according to sources familiar with the situation, public memos, and emails obtained by the Washington Examiner.”

Guess who’s accused?

The Global Disinformation Index publishes an exclusion list” of the worst offenders to ad tech companies, which can “defund and downrank” those supposed offenders to harm their bottom line.

The full exclusion list isn’t publicly available but they earlier published a report of some of what they consider the most and least “risky” sites.

Let’s try a fun exercise. I’ll list the top sites deemed most at risk of sharing disinformation, then those that are the least at risk of spreading disinformation. You let me know if you see anything in common.

The group says the following sites are the most risky:

• New York Post

• RealClearPolitics

• Reason Magazine

• The Federalist

• The Daily Wire

• The Blaze

• One America News Network

• The American Conservative

• Newsmax

• The American Spectator

Teacher’s Favorites

You can probably guess where this is going, but here are the least risky:

• HuffPost

• New York Times

• The Washington Post

• AP News

• NPR

• ProPublica

• BuzzFeed News

• USA Today

• Insider

• Wall Street Journal

Follow the money

The GDI is a UK-based think tank that receives taxpayer money from Americans like George Soros groups and, yes, the U.S. government. The Daily Caller reports that the State Department helped fund the group, through its Global Engagement Center (GEC).

I’d never heard of the GEC until Elon Musk called it "worst offender in US government censorship & media manipulation." He later added, “They are a threat to our democracy,"

GDI also lists as funders George Soros’ Open Society Foundations, Pierre Omidyar’s Luminate and Craig Newmark Philanthropies, all left-wing billionaires who you often see funding behind-the-scenes operations to shape our news.

The results

Major ad companies are aligning themselves with the GDI and using the exclusion list to defund those outlets in question. It’s just one more way to tip the balance of news in the online world.

It looks like, along with creating alternative news platforms, and the need for creating non-liberal AI programs, conservatives need to create competing online ad networks as well.

— Ken

Finally …