Republicans eye ‘disinformation’ group that said NY Post too ‘risky’ for ads

WASHINGTON — Congressional Republicans are probing federal funding of a UK-based organization that falsely declared The Post and other major news outlets “risky” possible spreaders of false information. 

House and Senate sources say that investigators are trying to get to the bottom of how the London-based Global Disinformation Index secured federal funds before creating a December blacklist of 10 outlets, including The Post, that boast conservative or libertarian-leaning opinion sections. 

“Congress can bar the use of funds for efforts to combat disinformation through censorship or suspension of accounts. It can also bar the funding of groups that create these types of blacklists,” said George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley. 

Three sources told The Post that’s exactly what legislators are looking into. One congressional aide said, “that could be something that results from the investigation — [but we] need to get all the facts first.” 

Two other sources said legislators are studying how to achieve that remedy — noting that the GDI reportedly secured $100,000 from the State Department’s Global Engagement Center and $545,000 from the government-funded National Endowment for Democracy.

Both entities have said they don’t plan to provide additional funding to the group, but the past spending has raised alarms on Capitol Hill. 

The GDI calls itself “the world’s first rating of the media sites based on the risk of the outlet carrying disinformation” and issued its blacklist aimed at advertisers without providing any evidence that The Post actually spread disinformation.

“No program or office like this should be receiving any federal funding; I can tell you that much,” said Rep. Dan Bishop (R-NC), who serves on the House Judiciary Committee’s select subcommittee on the “weaponization” of government.

“My office is currently looking at all possible avenues to defund these rogue agencies violating Americans’ rights and working to investigate them,” Bishop said.

“US taxpayer dollars should never be funneled to left-wing disinformation groups that are trying to blacklist American news outlets like The New York Post,” said House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.). “Freedom of speech and the press are core American values and must be protected against radical progressives seeking to censor opinions and facts that don’t fit their political narrative.”

Comer, who demanded more information on the funding from Secretary of State Antony Blinken in a Feb. 23 letter, added, “The House Oversight and Accountability Committee is pressing the Biden Administration for answers about this attack on the First Amendment.” 

“It is extremely concerning that the US government is allegedly funding the Global Disinformation Index, which is being used to target conservative media outlets,” said Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.). “We’ve seen recently how the US government has tried to use the tech sector to control the narrative on many issues. Outlets such as the Huffington Post and BuzzFeed are among the biggest pushers of disinformation, yet are ranked as very trustworthy by the index.

“No taxpayer funds should ever be used to censor or suppress speech,” she added.

At least one prominent ad firm, Microsoft-owned Xandr, said it “stopped using GDI’s services” in response to an investigative reporting series by the Washington Examiner, but it remains unclear how widely the rubric has been adopted by either third parties that place ads or individual companies.

The clamor for guarding reporting against government meddling comes as President Biden prepares to announce his annual budget proposal on Thursday — with annual funding legislation a potential vehicle for attaching amendments that bar similar uses of taxpayer funds in the future.

Also on Thursday, the House Judiciary Committee’s select subcommittee on the weaponization of the government will hold a hearing to assess revelations in the “Twitter Files,” which included the revelation that the State Department’s Global Engagement Center also funded the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab, which sent proposed blacklists to the social media giant. 

The GDI’s 25-page report that included the proposed advertising blacklist said it analyzed 20 articles per news source and also reviewed publications’ policies for bylines, corrections and other issues. The analysis also assessed whether outlets engaged in “negative targeting,” including the “use of ridiculing, derogatory, or hateful remarks, along with the promotion of unsubstantiated doubts or distrust in a specific actor.”

The report distinction between “criticism” and “targeting” appeared to be subjective.

“Criticism was not considered negative targeting, as long as the author used solid reasoning and backed their claims with strong evidence articles scorning or denigrating individuals such as politicians, the President of the United States, journalists, TV personalities, or celebrities,” said the report, which noted that “Big Tech” and specific companies were heavily [criticized] for taking a position regarding issues like disinformation.”

The report did not provide an in-depth analysis of specific outlets but said that advertisers should consider it “lowest-risk” to work with 10 outlets including NPR, the New York Times, USA Today, the Washington Post, BuzzFeed and the Huffington Post. The Wall Street Journal, which like The Post is owned by News Corp, also got a green light.

The report’s list of “the ten riskiest online news outlets” was topped by The Post and included libertarian Reason Magazine, RealClearPolitics, the Federalist, the Daily Wire, the American Conservative magazine and Newsmax.

“The New York Post was rated as high-risk, largely because of its lack of transparency around operational policies and practices,” the report said. “The site published no public guidelines for the use of bylines on its content, the types and number of sources its content relies on, or pre-publication fact-checking and post-publication corrections processes. As a result, even if relevant policies exist, they cannot be factored into the site’s risk score.”

The Post publishes bylines on news stories, cites by name or transparently describes sources and publishes corrections when errors are reported, as is common practice for major news organizations.

“Additionally, content sampled from The Post frequently displayed bias, sensationalism and clickbait, which carries the risk of misleading the site’s readers,” the entry continued. “Importantly, GDI’s study did not review specific high-profile stories and attempt to determine whether they were disinformation. Rather, the risk score is based on a robust operational framework and a blind review of a sample of articles from across the site.”

Other surveys of news stories have been more favorable to The Post. For example, a blind reader survey by the organization AllSides, which assesses media bias, found in October that readers placed The Post closer to the political center in terms of unbiased reporting than the New York Times.

Political backlash against government funding of GDI follows the Biden administration’s since-abandoned plans to create a Disinformation Governance Board, which prompted the American Civil Liberties Union to say, “The First Amendment bars the government from deciding for us what is true or false, online or anywhere.”

UCLA law professor and free speech expert Eugene Volokh says that while it’s not unconstitutional for the federal government to identify purportedly false information or to fund groups that do, Congress can bar funding for such efforts in the name of upholding free speech principles.

“It may very well be a good idea for Congress to do that,” Volokh said. “At the very least, the funds do not seem to be being well spent.”

Aaron Terr, director of public advocacy at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, which has emerged as a prominent challenger to the ACLU in fighting for free speech, said, “Government policing of purported disinformation creates a serious risk of discrimination against speakers who contradict official narratives.”

“The Global Disinformation Index’s receipt of public funds may not be enough to violate the First Amendment, but the government should steer clear of efforts to cut off revenue to news outlets because of the content of their reporting,” Terr said. “The State Department’s involvement paints a disturbing picture of a government agency attempting to end-run the First Amendment by encouraging private sector censorship.”

The Global Disinformation Index did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment.

A spokeswoman for the National Endowment for Democracy said that it won’t provide additional funding for the GDI and that “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.”

The State Department said its Global Engagement Center, which funded GDI, worked with the organization on “counter-disinformation efforts in East Asia and Europe.”

“The award to the Global Disinformation Index was closed on 15 March 2022,” the department said. “No further work is planned.”