{"id":65102,"date":"2023-02-25T07:38:12","date_gmt":"2023-02-25T12:38:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=65102"},"modified":"2023-02-25T07:38:12","modified_gmt":"2023-02-25T12:38:12","slug":"comer-launches-probe-into-state-departments-alleged-funding-of-group-blacklisting-conservative-media-under-the-guise-of-combatting-disinformation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=65102","title":{"rendered":"Comer Launches Probe into State Department\u2019s Alleged Funding of Group Blacklisting Conservative Media \u2018Under the Guise of Combatting Disinformation\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Comer Launches Probe into State Department\u2019s Alleged Funding of Group Blacklisting Conservative Media \u2018Under the Guise of Combatting Disinformation\u2019<\/a><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n
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\"Rep.<\/a><\/div>\n
Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), chairman of the House Oversight and Reform Committee, delivers remarks during a hearing in the Rayburn House Office Building in Washington, on Feb. 01, 2023. (Anna Moneymaker\/Getty Images)<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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House Oversight Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) sent a letter on Thursday to the U.S. State Department demanding records and a briefing by the agency regarding its alleged funding of a \u201cdisinformation tracking group\u201d that is blacklisting conservative-leaning news outlets.<\/p>\n

The letter (pdf<\/a>)\u00a0cites as evidence the Washington Examiner\u2019s series of investigative reports uncovering the State Department\u2019s alleged partnership with activist organizations, specifically one \u201cforeign organization,\u201d to \u201csuppress lawful speech and defund disfavored news outlets under the guise of combatting disinformation.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Committee is disturbed by recent reporting that taxpayer money ended up in the hands of a foreign organization running an\u00a0advertising blacklist of organizations accused of hosting disinformation on their websites, including several conservative-leaning news organizations,\u201d Comer wrote.<\/p>\n

The letter goes on to detail the Washington Examiner\u2019s findings.<\/p>\n

According<\/a> to the outlet, major ad companies look to \u201cnonpartisan\u201d groups that claim to detect and fight \u201cdisinformation\u201d online to help determine which news outlets and websites they should avoid.<\/p>\n

Some of these \u201cdisinformation monitors,\u201d the Washington Examiner went on to explain, \u201care compiling secret blacklists and feeding them to ad companies, with the aim of defunding and shutting down disfavored speech.\u201d<\/p>\n

One such group is British Global Disinformation Institute (GDI), which has compiled a \u201cdynamic exclusion list\u201d of 2,000 websites and rates those outlets based on their \u201calleged disinformation \u2018risk\u2019 factor,\u201d according to the Washington Examiner.<\/p>\n

GDI\u2019s website<\/a>\u00a0further explains its purpose. Calling itself an \u201cindependent, non-profit, open source, intelligence hub,\u201d GDI \u201ctracks disinformation and extremism across platforms online\u201d to \u201cserve a broad array of governments, NGOs [non-governmental organizations], online platforms, and media.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2026click on the above link to read the rest\u2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Comer Launches Probe into State Department\u2019s Alleged Funding of Group Blacklisting Conservative Media \u2018Under the Guise of Combatting Disinformation\u2019 Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), chairman of the House Oversight and Reform Committee, delivers remarks during a hearing in the Rayburn House Office Building in Washington, on Feb. 01, 2023. (Anna Moneymaker\/Getty Images) House Oversight Chair James […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[33749,33751,120,3717,2542,33750,16350,827,834,843,2344,22026],"class_list":["post-65102","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-liberty","tag-amy-gamm","tag-british-global-disinformation-institute","tag-censorship","tag-disinformation","tag-freedom-of-speech","tag-gdi","tag-the-epoch-times","tag-united-states","tag-us","tag-us-government","tag-us-state-department","tag-washington-examiner"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65102","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=65102"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65102\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":65103,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65102\/revisions\/65103"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=65102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=65102"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=65102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}