Report: Disinformation Tracker Paid $90K for Conservative Blacklist
- June 1, 2023
The Global Disinformation Index (GDI), a British-based organization that’s funded by the State Department to rate news sites worldwide based on their disinformation “risk” factor, paid the University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin) more than $90,000 for a report aimed toward conservative media outlets, the Washington Examiner reported on Thursday.
Republican lawmakers and watchdogs have heavily scrutinized GDI since February, following the first of numerous Examiner reports that reported on the organization’s covert operation of feeding advertisers conservative website blacklists with the intent of suppressing disfavored speech.
The latest contracts obtained by the Examiner disclosed that the British disinformation tracker steered $90,810 to the University of Texas’ Global Disinformation Lab for a December 2022 report. That report identified the New York Post, the Blaze, RealClearPolitics, and other conservative websites as the “riskiest” sites.
The Examiner reported that right-leaning watchdog Protect the Public’s Trust also filed a lawsuit against the State Department last month, looking to uncover records in connection to its prior GDI funding.