UK Government funding group that seeks to demonetise conservative news publishers

The UK Government is contributing to a widespread international attack on free speech by funding a UK-based organisation that works to disrupt online advertising revenues for many right-of-centre publications (Daily Sceptic,?Epoch Times,?Reclaim the Net,?Washington Examiner). Taxpayers’ money is being funnelled through the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office to an outfit called the?Global Disinformation Index?(GDI), which compiles a “dynamic exclusion list” – or ‘blocklist’ – of mostly conservative publications and then feeds that list to advertisers with the aim of defunding and shutting down lawful, right-of centre speech.

The rise of “disinformation trackers” like the GDI marks the opening of a new front in the battle for online free speech. Brands looking to expand their digital footprint by promoting products online through multiple websites and platforms are increasingly turning to such organisations for information on how to manage reputational risk, which, in turn, has granted them considerable power to infringe upon the free speech rights of conservative journalists.

Publications included on the GDI’s blacklist in the US include the?American Spectator,?Breitbart,?Reason,?American Conservative?and the?New York Post?(i.e., the only mainstream newspaper in the US to publicise the?Hunter Biden laptop story?ahead of the 2020 US presidential election). The list’s aim is to discredit conservative news organisations, reduce their ad revenue and ultimately shut them down.

Apart from the support of the British taxpayer, the GDI has received funds from the US State Department via the?National Endowment for Democracy?(NED), as well as George Soros’s Open Society Foundations, and a group of wealthy foundations including the left-wing Knight Foundation.

One of the reasons the GDI poses such a threat to free speech is that its definition of ‘disinformation’ is unusually capacious. It doesn’t just mean information that’s false and disseminated by people who know it’s false and have malevolent intentions. The GDI has broadened?its definition?to include what it calls “adversarial narratives… which create a risk of harm by undermining trust in science or targeting at-risk individuals or institutions”.

So, for instance, if a conservative publication like?Breitbart?decides to use the term ‘illegal alien’ in its crime reporting – rather than the technically correct term ‘undocumented immigrant’ – the GDI classifies that as disinformation. Does that make?Breitbart’s reporting inaccurate? Of course not. As the GDI’s Executive Director, Danny Rogers,?cheerfully concedes, “each individual story would likely fact check to be technically correct, in that the crime did happen and the alleged perpetrator was likely an undocumented immigrant”. The problem, he says, is that such phrases are integral to an “adversarial narrative” that poses a “risk of harm to vulnerable populations”.

However, a fightback is now underway in the US. This week, the GDI lost the NED’s financial support over its role in demonetising conservative news outlets. According to Damon Wilson, CEO of NED, his organisation had only recently been made aware that the GDI was funded by a different donor that focused on specific US media outlets. That mattered, he said, because “as set forth in our Articles of Incorporation and the NED Act, our mandate is to work around the world and not in the United States. We have strict policies and practices in place so that NED and the work we fund remains internationally focused, ensuring the endowment does not become involved in domestic politics.”

NED’s decision to defund GDI is a significant victory for free speech because NED is funded by the State Department.?Financial documents show that NED has received over $300 million from the US Government since 2021. According to?Breitbart, Republican Senator Elise Stefanik was instrumental in ensuring that GDI would no longer receive financial support from NED. Stefanik, an NED board member, has been concerned about the targeting of conservative voices and media, especially GDI seeking to demonetise them.

It’s good to see US politicians waking up to the threat to free speech posed by the nascent anti-disinformation industry. The FSU is now working with friends and supporters across both Houses of Parliament to persuade the Foreign and Commonwealth Development Office to stop its funding of the GDI.

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