Several well-financed organizations are leading the effort to blacklist conservative media, claiming the news outlets spread disinformation, according to the Washington Examiner.
Ostensibly nonpartisan groups that claim to be fighting the spread of disinformation online are developing covert blacklists and turning them over to advertising agencies, with the goal of shutting down speech they don't agree with, according to emails obtained by the outlet, public memos, and sources familiar with the situation.
Seeking to promote products online, brands are turning to ad agencies, some of which are then contracting disinformation trackers to determine which websites they should allegedly defund.
"It's devastating," Mike Benz, the State Department's ex-deputy assistant for internal communications and information policy, told the Examiner. "The implementation of ad revenue-crushing sentinels like Newsguard, Global Disinformation Index, and the like has completely crippled the potential of alternative news sources to compete on an even economic playing field with approved media outlets like CNN and The New York Times."
One of the self-proclaimed disinformation monitors shaping the ad world behind the scenes is the British-based Global Disinformation Index (GDI), which rates news outlets based on their alleged disinformation "risk" factor.
The organization's mission is to "remove the financial incentive" to create disinformation, with its "core output" being a "dynamic exclusion list." GDI CEO Clare Melford said on a podcast last March that there are at least 2,000 websites on this exclusion list, which has "had a significant impact on the advertising revenue that has gone to those sites."
As disinformation tracking becomes big business, GDI has been pulling in significant sums of cash. According to tax records, the group's charity in San Antonio, Texas, listed $345,000 in revenue for 2020, and its private foundation jumped from approximately $19,600 in revenue in 2019 to more than $569,000 in 2020.
Emails obtained by the Examiner show that the Microsoft-owned ad company Xandr is one of the firms subscribed to GDI's exclusion list.
In September 2022, Xandr informed companies that it would be using GDI's list to target content that is "morally reprehensible or patently offensive," lacking "redeeming social value," or "could include false or misleading information," emails show.
"To enforce this change, Xandr is partnering with the Global Disinformation Index ('GDI') and will be adopting their exclusion list," Xandr wrote to other companies, linking to an appeal "webform" for publishers to complete if they disagree with their "risk" rating.
The top 10 "riskiest" and "worst" offenders for peddling disinformation, according to GDI reports, are all conservative-leaning and include the American Spectator, Newsmax, the Federalist, the American Conservative, One America News, the Blaze, the Daily Wire, RealClearPolitics, Reason, and the New York Post.
Benz, who is now the executive director of the Foundation for Freedom Online, told the Examiner the purpose of the disinformation tracking industry is clearly to destroy "the reach, scalability, market, and even credibility" of conservative news outlets.
GDI is not the only organization coordinating with ad companies to bring down certain websites.
The $4 billion, publicly-traded DoubleVerify operates an "inflammatory news index" that clients can access. According to the company, content is added to the index if it contains "blatant opinion statements in non-editorial content," violence incitement, or "the use of slurs when referring to public figures."
The ad verification company Integral Ad Science, which is worth more than $1.6 billion, uses artificial intelligence to rate alleged disinformation and blocks ads deemed "too risky" from appearing on client pages.
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