This is part three of a Washington Examiner investigative series about self-styled ‘disinformation’ tracking groups that are cracking down on conservative media and part of a lucrative operation that aims to defund disfavored speech. You can read parts one and two Here and here
EXCLUSIVE — An advertising company owned by Microsoft that subscribes to a left-leaning “disinformation” group’s secret blacklist for conservative media outlets has been internally flagging right-leaning websites and taking steps to defund and deplatform them, according to records obtained by the Washington Examiner and whistleblowers in the advertising industry.
The Global Disinformation Index, a British organization with two affiliated U.S. nonprofit groups,
is feeding secret blacklists to ad companies, such as Xandr, with the intent of shutting down websites peddling alleged “disinformation.” Now, sets of documents and emails leaked to the Washington Examiner shed light on how Xandr, which Microsoft bought in 2021 for $1 billion, has targeted disfavored speech and blocked conservative websites from reaping key ad dollars.
DISINFORMATION INC: STATE DEPARTMENT BANKROLLS GROUP SECRETLY BLACKLISTING CONSERVATIVE MEDIA
“Xandr’s use of politically motivated flags on this blacklist stands outside of the norm in advertising,” said a senior executive at an ad company, noting that the real purpose of blacklisting should be to protect brands from advertising “on content that is illegal, fraudulent, [or] low-quality.”
“In this case, Xandr prevented us from talking to our voters in the critical days leading up to Election Day,” the executive, who was granted anonymity to discuss confidential company matters, told the Washington Examiner. “Our audience reads the Examiner, Daily Wire, Townhall, etc. Voters go to these news & opinion sites [to] inform their decisions. And if Microsoft is using their technology to block us from showing ads on these websites, they’re actively preventing us from talking to voters on the public squares where their decisions are being informed.”
GDI’s “dynamic exclusion list” includes at least 2,000 domains, many of which are “foreign state-sponsored news and opinion sites, forums that traffic in disinformation, and explicitly sanctioned websites,” according to a second source close to Microsoft. Each month, GDI sends Xandr a list of websites on this blacklist, said the source.
The Washington Examiner revealed on Thursday that it is on GDI’s list and spoke to an ad-buying source who said Breitbart News is also. Separately, GDI has said that the 10 “riskiest” news outlets for purported disinformation are the American Spectator, Newsmax, the Federalist, the American Conservative, One America News Network, the Blaze, the Daily Wire, RealClearPolitics, Reason, and the New York Post.
An executive in the ad industry who contracts with conservative media outlets provided the Washington Examiner with internal Xandr data showing which websites the group has financially punished. That data were uploaded by the Washington Examiner to a spreadsheet and can be viewed below.
There are 39 domains on the list. Thirty-seven of them have been marked as “false/misleading,” while Breitbart.TV, a defunct domain, was flagged as “hate speech.” Townhall was flagged as “reprehensible/offensive,” according to the data.
Some websites flagged as “false/misleading” included the Washington Examiner, the Daily Wire, RealClearPolitics, Newsmax, Breitbart, the Blaze, the Washington Times, Judicial Watch, and MRC.TV, which is under the Media Research Center. The Drudge Report is also deemed “false/misleading.”
The data do not cite GDI. However, Xandr informed publishers in September 2022 it would start adopting GDI’s exclusion list to punish content deemed “morally reprehensible or patently offensive,” lacking “redeeming social value,” or that which “could include false or misleading information,” according to emails.
“Xandr is adopting GDI’s exclusion list,” a senior Xandr employee wrote to ad groups in 2022, according to emails newly obtained by the Washington Examiner.
“Domains or apps that GDI has classified as a disinformation site will be added to Xandr’s global blocklist, preventing spend to those domains or apps,” the employee wrote in the email. “Creatives that have domains or apps assigned to it from the blocklist will not pass Audit. This is the same process that exists today for domains or apps that Xandr and our partners have deemed as not passing our existing inventory quality standards (e.g. violence, malware, porn, etc).”
GDI has been open about the 10 websites it determines are the 10 “least risky.” These outlets, which all skew toward the left aside from the Wall Street Journal, are NPR, ProPublica, the Associated Press, Insider, the New York Times, USA Today, the Washington Post, Buzzfeed News, and HuffPost, according
to a 27-page GDI memo.
These websites, aside from Buzzfeed News and ProPublica, which are not listed in the dataset, have been “approved” for ads through Xandr, according to internal data.
“What we see going on is not new,” Dan Schneider, vice president for the Media Research Center’s Free Speech Alliance group, told the Washington Examiner. “We saw redlining efforts to prevent blacks from buying homes in certain communities. We saw blacklists in Hollywood to prevent people with different political beliefs from appearing in movies and getting writing contracts.”
“This blacklisting is un-American and specifically designed to upend the values of America and to silence the majority of our citizens,” he added. “It is what authoritarian thugs do.”
The revelation that Xandr has its own blacklist of conservative websites comes after the Washington Examiner reported that the State Department granted $330,000 to GDI.
The State Department’s Global Engagement Center, which aims to “counter foreign state and non-state propaganda and disinformation efforts aimed at undermining or influencing the policies, security, or stability of the United States, its allies, and partner nations,” sent $100,000 to GDI.
Those funds came from a $230,000 grant award in September 2021 that GDI won, along with two other groups, through the U.S-Paris Tech Challenge. The challenge sought “to advance the development of promising and innovative technologies against disinformation and propaganda” overseas, according to documents.
The National Endowment for Democracy, a nonprofit group authorized through Congress that received $300 million from the State Department in 2021, handed $250,000 to GDI, according to records. Its 23-member board, which notably includes House Republican Conference Chairwoman Elise Stefanik
(R-NY) and Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-TX), “controls” how appropriations are spent, according to the NED’s website.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
“Any outfit like that engaged in censorship shouldn’t have any contact with the government because they’re tainted by association with a group that is doing something fundamentally against American values,” Jeffrey Clark, the former acting head of the Justice Department’s Civil Division, previously told the Washington Examiner. “The government or any private entity shouldn’t be involved with this entity that’s engaged in conduct that is either legally questionable or at least morally questionable.”
Microsoft declined to comment.
