Left-wing global watchdog groups have raked in hundreds of thousands of dollars with secretive “exclusion lists” that target conservative media in an attempt to deny them advertising dollars, according to a bombshell report.
The UK-based Global Disinformation Index (GDI) has two San Antonio, Texas-based affiliates with nonprofit status that have seen their coffers swell in the guise of tracking disinformation, according to the Washington Examiner.
Tax records for 2020 cited by the news site ProPublica show Disinformation Index Inc. had total revenue of $345,000, while Disinformation Index Foundation raked in $569,219 — an increase of more than 2,800% compared to the previous year, when its revenue totaled $19,612.
The London-based GDI is run by Clare Melford, a former senior vice president for MTV Networks, and Daniel Rogers, who sits on the board of Human Rights First, a left-leaning nonprofit group that blames the spread of disinformation for fomenting “violent extremism and public health crises.”
The group’s “exclusionary list” is compiled with input from members of an advisory panel that includes journalist Anne Applebaum, who had dismissed The Post’s Hunter Biden laptop scoop as “not interesting.”
The blacklist contains at least 2,000 sites, according to Melford, and is sent to big ad firms, which have more and more leaned on the “nonpartisan” organizations to combat disinformation.
The firms are then pressured to cease doing business with right-leaning, conservative news outlets — among them American Spectator, Newsmax, the Federalist, the American Conservative, One America News, the Blaze, the Daily Wire, RealClearPolitics, Reason, and the New York Post.
The Post has sought comment from GDI.
Matthew Savare, an attorney who specializes in digital advertising, media and entertainment, told The Post that labeling content as “disinformation” has become more common in recent years — posing a threat to airing of certain viewpoints.
“Unfortunately, no one defines what ‘disinformation’ is,” Savare said. “This vagueness often leads to the censoring of opinions and uneven application of the policies, which has had a chilling effect on certain types of content and viewpoints, materially decreased revenue for certain outlets, and resulted in a less free flow of ideas.”
Being placed on lists of media outlets that are accused of “disinformation” could have chilling financial repercussions for news sites that rely on a shrinking pool of ad dollars to stay afloat in an increasingly competitive digital media environment.
Meanwhile, these same organizations have rated left-leaning outlets such as National Public Radio, The New York Times, USA Today, Insider and HuffPost as “least risky” when it comes to spreading “disinformation,” the Examiner reported.
Xandr, an influential ad company that AT&T sold to Microsoft for $1 billion in 2021, has reportedly subscribed to GDI’s exclusion list.
According to the Examiner report, Xandr told clients it would begin to shun news outlets that publish content deemed to be “morally reprehensible or patently offensive” and which lacks “redeeming social value.”
GDI’s says on its website the group seeks to “remove the financial incentive” to spread “disinformation” by disseminating a “dynamic exclusion list” that rates media outlets according to their “risk” factor.
“The First Amendment elements are pretty clear,” Ken Paulson, director of the Free Speech Center, told The Post. “Watchdog groups have a free speech right to call out what they see as misleading content, and media businesses have a free speech right to complain that they’re losing revenue because of the scrutiny.”
