(Robert Jonathan, Headline USA) The software leviathan Oracle is deleting its partnership with the far-left nonprofit group that attempts to censor, with the help of the Biden administration, online conservative news outlets.
The U.S. State Department and an allied nonprofit called the National Endowment for Democracy reportedly funneled approximately $655,000 of taxpayer money to the so-called Global Disinformation Index.
U.K.-based GDI purports to do a risk assessment on news websites for their degree of disinformation.
“After conducting a review, we agree with others in the advertising industry that the services we provide marketers must be in full support of free speech, which is why we are ending our relationship with GDI,” an Oracle executive told the Washington Examiner.
Oracle “proudly” began collaborating with the U.K.-based GDI in August 2021.
As an example of gross bias, in its findings of about 69 English- and Spanish-language news websites, GDI claimed that NPR, HuffPost and BuzzFeed, all extremely far-leftist outfits, were among those considered least risky.
The 10 most-risky were conservative-leaning.
At its core, GDI allegedly tries to convince marketers to pull advertising from disfavored sites, which critics have deemed an economic blacklist that could, in a worst-case scenario, put these sites out of business.
“In other words, GDI influences advertisers to pull their dollars and thus silence speech dissenting from left-wing orthodoxy,” The Federalist explained.
In a counter-narrative to Big Tech tendencies that provides a glimmer of hope for online free speech and the traditional marketplace of ideas, Microsoft advertising subsidiary Xandr previously cut ties with GDI and its “dynamic exclusion list,” at least temporarily, pending an ongoing investigation
“[I]internal data provided by ad industry whistleblowers showed that conservative websites no longer are labeled by Xandr as ‘false/misleading,’ ‘hate speech,’ or ‘reprehensible/offensive,'” the Examiner explained.
The National Endowment for Democracy has also ended its GDI collaboration.
Elections have consequences, as it is often said. Thus, it is certainly conceivable that these arrangements would have stayed in place without GOP control of the U.S. House and the resulting weaponization of government subcommittee hearings.
“As I wrote to Secretary Blinken in March, U.S. taxpayers should not provide funding for international organizations focused on blacklisting and targeting right-leaning American news organizations,” U.S. Rep. Ken Buck has said, according to the Examiner.
“However, the Global Disinformation Index has in the past chosen to accept and request U.S. funding from the State Department, therefore I believe that U.S. taxpayers deserve full transparency from GDI regarding information about who else has funded their efforts to silence conservative speech,” the lawmaker added.
Left-wing company NewsGuard also purports to track and log alleged disinformation on the Internet with a tool that similarly rates news and information websites.
Particularly since former President Trump came on the scene, projection has become the Left’s trademark. America has repeatedly witnessed misinformers/disinformers loudly lamenting disinformation or self-styed democracy protectors championing censorship and authoritarianism.
