Disinformation Inc: Conservative blacklister cited in brief over Biden ‘censorship’ lawsuit
Gabe Kaminsky
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A self-styled “disinformation” tracker that the Washington Examiner revealed has been secretly blacklisting conservative media has been cited in a new brief filed by a free speech legal group in connection to a major lawsuit alleging that the Biden administration has coordinated with social media companies on “censorship,” court records show.
Oracle announced on Wednesday that the multinational software corporation will no longer collaborate with the Global Disinformation Index, which feeds blacklists of right-leaning websites to advertisers and has received roughly $665,000 from the State Department between 2020 and 2021, according to multiple Washington Examiner reports. This same British entity, which has two affiliated United States nonprofit groups that have come under fire for shielding information from their 2021 tax forms, was cited in a Tuesday friend-of-the-court brief filed by Alliance Defending Freedom in State of Louisiana v. Biden — a lawsuit filed in May 2022 that claims the government has colluded with Big Tech to stifle discourse online.
DISINFORMATION INC: MASSIVE CORPORATION ORACLE SEVERS TIES WITH CONSERVATIVE BLACKLIST GROUP
“All signs point to a growing government influence over social media,” the brief stated. “The Biden Administration admitted as early as 2021 that it was flagging and reporting posts on Facebook, YouTube, and other platforms as COVID-19-related ‘misinformation.’ A recent report found that the U.S. State Department sent $330 million [sic] to The Global Disinformation Index, a British organization that is attempting to discredit and blacklist many conservative news outlets for peddling ‘disinformation.'”
The brief’s reference to $330 million is a mistaken reference to the fact that the National Endowment for Democracy, a nonprofit group that pocketed over $330 million from the State Department in 2021 and receives funding through congressional appropriations, has granted money to GDI, Alliance Defending Freedom confirmed. Shortly after the Washington Examiner reported on the grants, the NED announced in late February that it would no longer financially support GDI.
Louisiana v. Biden was brought forth by Republican attorneys general Jeff Landry of Louisiana and then-Missouri’s Eric Schmitt, now a senator for The Show-Me State. The lawsuit alleges that the Biden administration infringed on the public’s First Amendment Rights through its efforts working with Big Tech employees to engage in content moderation related to election integrity, COVID-19, Hunter Biden’s infamous abandoned laptop, and more.
For instance, Landry released a document in January showing that the White House urged a Facebook employee in April 2021 to restrict posts about Fox News host Tucker Carlson claiming that there have been efficacy issues with “vaccines.” The White House also told Facebook in May 2021 that “slowing down” posts appearing to be “anti-vax” would be “reasonable,” and also urged Twitter to remove a post by anti-vaccine critic Robert Kennedy, Jr., who recently announced his Democratic bid for White House in 2024, documents show.
“Government should be freedom’s strongest defender, not its greatest threat,” Travis Barham, senior counsel for Alliance Defending Freedom, said in a Wednesday statement. “Americans don’t look to the White House or Silicon Valley to discover and express the truth. That’s not the role of government, and it certainly isn’t the role of Big Tech.”
The brief came just before Oracle, which previously announced a collaboration in 2021 with GDI to engage in “brand safety,” told the Washington Examiner that it would no longer maintain a relationship with the group. Microsoft launched an internal investigation two months ago into its partnership with GDI on the heels of ad industry whistleblowers leaking data showing how conservative sites were labeled by the Microsoft-owned company Xandr as “false/misleading,” “hate speech,” or “reprehensible/offensive.”
Some of the websites that have been targeted by the campaign have included the Washington Examiner, the New York Post, RealClearPolitics, the American Conservative, Townhall, Reason, Newsmax, the Daily Wire, and the watchdog group Judicial Watch.
“After conducting a review, we agree with others in the advertising industry that the services we provide marketers must be in full support of free speech, which is why we are ending our relationship with GDI,” Michael Egbert, vice president for corporate communications at Oracle, said in a statement on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, GDI’s co-founder and CEO Clare Melford was sent a letter on Tuesday by Rep. Ken Buck (R-CO), who demanded its two affiliated nonprofit groups in the U.S. release a “complete and unredacted list of donors.” The letter came days after a Washington Examiner investigation revealed that the private AN Foundation, also known as the Disinformation Index Foundation, and its affiliated public charity, Disinformation Index Inc., are shielding items like board members, officers, and donors from tax forms, while claiming to be “harassed” under a little-known federal exemption law.
It is unclear if the groups were approved by the IRS for the exemption. Nonetheless, tax experts say the provision does not allow them to refuse to disclose basic information about themselves to the public.
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“This is outrageous,” Paul Kamenar, counsel to the National Legal and Policy Center, a conservative watchdog that plans to file an IRS complaint against both GDI groups, said last week.
GDI did not return a request for comment.