American Thinker among the conservative websites blacklisted for disinformation by groups funded by the Biden administration

The Washington Examiner recently released a two-part report on their investigation of self-proclaimed 'disinformation' tracking organizations that are targeting conservative media.

News outlets such as American Thinker, The Washington Examiner, Newsmax, Breitbart, etc. as well as news websites run by Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, etc. were branded 'unreliable'. Townhall.com was branded ‘offensive’ and ‘reprehensible’

News aggregators, Real Clear Politics weren't spared perhaps because they include opinions expressed on conservative websites.

https://twitter.com/gekaminsky/status/1624115407521972229

How does this work?

Corporate houses seeking to promote their products online seek the services of corporate digital ad companies to run their online advertisement campaign.

These firms contract "disinformation" trackers to obtain private information about the ‘blacklisted’ websites to avoid while placing their advertisements.

The Global Disinformation Index (GDI), a British organization, and its two affiliated U.S. nonprofit groups based in Texas are instances of such "disinformation" trackers.

GDI claims to want to “remove the financial incentive” of spreading “disinformation” by disseminating a “dynamic exclusion list” that rates media outlets according to their “risk” factor.

The 'exclusion list' is a euphemism for blacklist that GDI shares with ad companies.

Now a little bit about GDI

GDI’s website site carried out a Disinformation risk assessment last year where it ranks pro-Democrat mouthpieces such as NPR, The New York Times, ProPublica, etc. as low disinformation risk.

GDI also has reports on Misogynistic Disinformation, anti-LGBT Disinformation, Climate Change Disinformation, COVID-19 disinformation, etc. There are five reports about disinformation about the Ukraine Conflict.

The definition of "disinformation" is unclear. But it can be inferred from the content on GDI that any website that violates the Democrat groupthink will be branded as 'disinformation' spreaders and will be blacklisted.

How is the blacklist maintained?

GDI’s ‘blacklist’ was compiled group of individuals on the ‘board’ for GDI. This includes journalist Anne Applebaum, who branded The NY Post’s Hunter Biden laptop scoop as “not interesting.”

How is the blacklist implemented?

Let’s take Xandr that was acquired by Microsoft in 2021 for $1 billion as an example. 

Xandr subscribes to GDI's blacklist service.

Xandr informed corporate houses in September 2022 that it would begin adopting GDI's blacklist to punish content that is "morally reprehensible or patently offensive," lacking "redeeming social value," or "could include false or misleading information." 

Xandr also notified companies that it aims "to enforce this change, Xandr is partnering with the GDI and will be adopting their exclusion list". They also added an appeal "webform" to complete for companies that disagree with their "risk" rating.

This is a veiled threat to big corporate houses to fall in line.

If they refuse to comply with GDI’s blacklist they will be accused of funding bigotry, hate, domestic terrorism, insurrections,  and anti-scientific idea in addition to misinformation.

Most corporate houses do not want that kind of controversy so they obey.

But if curbing falsehoods was really the goal Democrat mouthpieces including CBS News, ABC News, NBC News, the NYT, the WaPo, etc. would have been blacklisted. These outlets amplified the Trump-Russia collusion hoax while they described, myriad other hoaxes on President Trump and participated in the suppression of the Hunter Biden Laptop story. 

But instead, they are targeting conservative websites.

Are these just a few private operatives attempting to manipulate the public discourse?

No, they are backed by governments.

Like most individuals and organizations who advocate for liberal causes, the ulterior motive is pecuniary gains.

The GDI received $330,000 from two State Department-backed entities linked to the highest levels of government.

The State Department-backed group that supported GDI is the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). NED receives most of its funding from annual congressional appropriations i.e. taxpayer funds.

According to financial statements, the NED received over $300 million from the State Department in 2021.

Among those on NED's board of directors is liberal journalist Anne Applebaum, who also sits on GDI's advisory panel. 

GDI also receives funds from Disinfo Cloud

The State Department’s official website states that “Disinfo Cloud is an unclassified platform used by the U.S. government, foreign partners, and technology providers to identify and learn about technologies to counter adversarial propaganda and disinformation.” 

Disinfo Cloud was used between 2018 and 2021 by Congress and federal agencies, including the Departments of Defense, Energy, Treasury, and the FBI.

In September 2021, the GEC and Disinfo Cloud announced that the Global Disinformation Index and two groups would split a $250,000 grant award as part of the U.S-Paris Tech Challenge.

The Washington Examiner revealed GDI's two Texas-based affiliated nonprofits statuses generated handsome profits recently.

Tax records show GDI’s US charity organization posted $345,000 in revenue in 2020, while its affiliated private foundation saw its roughly $19,600 revenue jump in 2019 to over $569,000 in 2020.

The government attempting to curb expression citing disinformation as an excuse should come as no surprise.

Last year, Biden’s Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas while testifying before Congress inadvertently revealed that the DHS had set up a Disinformation Governance Board.

Mayorkas wasn’t clear of the powers that the Board would have but said that it would "work and to equip local communities, to identify individuals who could be descending into violence by reason of ideologies, hate, false narratives, or other disinformation and misinformation propagated on social media and other platforms.”

After the intense backlash from conservatives in D.C. and in the media, the Biden administration “paused” the unconstitutional board.

Clearly, myriad such initiatives must be operating covertly

We already know how Twitter executives colluded with government agencies to manipulate the narrative leading to the 2020 Presidential elections and effectively rig the contest in favor of the Democrats.

Now for the Big Picture.

The income generated from online adverts is usually the lifeblood of independent conservative news organizations. If  this revenue stream is blocked these websites will find it impossible to sustain.

This blocking of adverts is a sly but sinister maneuver by fascists to control the narrative.

They don’t always kick open doors, conduct raids,, and arrest employees of an adversarial news organization unless they are revealing inconvenient facts about the Bidens, instead they defund these outlets.

In a free market, the sole criteria for adverts should be the popularity of the website i.e. how many visits per day. This is another instance of the government interfering in the free market.

The end goal is to have a total monopoly on the narrative with no counters. They are trying to criminalize political opposition and differences of opinion.

The First Amendment clearly states that everyone has the freedom to express themselves.

Watchdog groups have the right to call out what they think of as misleading content. The media businesses have the right to challenge that claim.

Watchdog groups do not have the right to unilaterally blacklist any organization that leads to loss of revenue. Governments do not have the right to favor one group only.

The ball once again is in the court of the Republicans.

Their job is not only to investigate this blatant violation of the first amendment and ensure the guilty are punished but also to educate voters about these violations of democratic principles by the Biden administration.

 Also appears on American Thinker