{"id":2269907,"date":"2024-06-17T17:23:02","date_gmt":"2024-06-17T21:23:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/state-department-subpoenaed-over-use-of-foreign-propaganda-weapon-against-domestic-media\/"},"modified":"2024-06-17T17:26:44","modified_gmt":"2024-06-17T21:26:44","slug":"state-department-subpoenaed-over-use-of-foreign-propaganda-weapon-against-domestic-media","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/state-department-subpoenaed-over-use-of-foreign-propaganda-weapon-against-domestic-media\/","title":{"rendered":"State Department Subpoenaed for Using Foreign Propaganda on Domestic Media"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">20<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fstate-department-subpoenaed-over-use-of-foreign-propaganda-weapon-against-domestic-media%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2269907&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>The \u200dU.S. \u2063State Department is currently under scrutiny\u2063 for its undisclosed spending on domestic third-party organizations that\u2063 assess the credibility \u2063of news outlets. This has led to concerns about potential\u2063 bias against conservative media. The House Small Committee resorted to issuing a subpoena to the department, asking for details about the Global Engagement Center\u2019s (GEC) financial activities, specifically targeting\u2063 their payments to groups like NewsGuard, the Global Disinformation Index (GDI), the Atlantic\u200b Council,\u200b Park Capital Investment Group, and \u200bthe Poynter Institute. The Committee is investigating what it sees as government-sanctioned attempts to control free speech and influence the revenue of American businesses through these third-party ratings. The \u2062GEC, which was initially meant to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/biden-taps-qatar-shill-to-lead-effort-to-counter-foreign-propaganda\/\" title=\"Biden Taps Qatar Shill To Lead Effort To Counter Foreign Propaganda\">counter foreign propaganda<\/a>, is now accused of \u2064influencing domestic media by labeling certain U.S. \u200dnews organizations as sources of misinformation,\u200b thereby affecting their relationship with advertisers. Additionally, GEC \u2062has employed firms linked to former\u200d government employees to possibly obscure its financial involvement in these activities. This \u2063involvement extends to initiatives like Disinfo Cloud, which promotes products that \u200caim to curb \u200ddisinformation \u200cbut appears \u200bto tread on domestic grounds\u2014a zone supposedly off-limits to the GEC \u200band State Department operations.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"readmore\">\n    <button onclick=\"showReadMore()\" id=\"readmorebtn\">Read more&#8230;<\/button>\n<\/p>\n<hr id=\"line\">\n<span id=\"more\"><\/p>\n<p>The State Department has refused to tell even Congress about how it <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/rep-cori-bush-wants-to-defund-the-police-but-spent-taxpayer-money-on-private-security-for-herself\/\" title=\"Rep. Cori Bush Wants To \u2018Defund The Police\u2019 But Spent Taxpayer Money On Private Security For Herself\">spent taxpayer money<\/a> on firms that rate the credibility of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/house-republicans-secure-provision-barring-pentagon-from-funding-disinformation-industry\/\" title=\"House Republicans have successfully included a provision that prevents the Pentagon from funding the 'disinformation' industry\">domestic news outlets<\/a>, which have been used to dissuade companies from doing business with conservative media.<\/p>\n<p>That forced the House Small Business Committee to resort to serving the State Department with a subpoena last week demanding records of payments by the Global Engagement Center, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/news\/investigations\/3045324\/state-department-subpoena-censorship\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Washington Examiner<\/a> reported.<\/p>\n<p>The subpoena asked for all GEC grant recipients and sub-recipients, and specifically mentioned NewsGuard, the Global Disinformation Index, the Atlantic Council, Park Capital Investment Group, and Poynter Institute, which runs Politifact.<\/p>\n<p>It also seeks more information about a document called 2023.02.14 GEC-GDI-BLACKLIST.docx, according to the subpoena, which was published by The Examiner.<\/p>\n<p>In a letter accompanying the subpoena, committee chairman Rep. Roger Williams (R-Texas) wrote to Secretary of State Anthony Blinken that \u201cThe House Committee on Small Business is investigating the U.S. government\u2019s censorship-by-proxy and revenue interference of American small businesses because of their lawful speech.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>GEC is a government entity housed at the State Department that was supposed to be focused on propaganda abroad, but has emerged as a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/news\/the-twitter-files-twitter-and-the-fbi-belly-button\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">central player<\/a> in attempts to stifle domestic journalism that is deemed \u201cdisinformation.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>GEC paid GDI, which deemed mainstream, center-right news organizations in the United States to be not credible. Advertisers are under pressure to avoid boycotts from the Left by not associating with news organizations that peddle \u201cmisinformation,\u201d and companies rely on third-party ratings organizations like GDI and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/news\/congress-to-probe-media-rating-firm-newsguard-for-possible-taxpayer-funded-censorship\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">NewsGuard<\/a> \u2014 also funded by GEC \u2014 to determine which those are.<\/p>\n<p>GEC also used a cutout called Park Advisors, a group tied to a former State Department employee, seemingly to hide some of its payments which impacted the domestic news marketplace.<\/p>\n<p>Neither the State Department nor GEC are allowed to operate on Americans. Yet a GEC platform called Disinfo Cloud, managed by Park Advisors, promoted products designed to suppress so-called disinformation, and GEC even opened up an office in Silicon Valley to allegedly gain influence over U.S. tech firms that control what Americans hear about.<\/p>\n<p>Williams wrote in his <a href=\"https:\/\/smallbusiness.house.gov\/uploadedfiles\/06.13.24_subpoena_to_state.pdf\">letter<\/a> that his committee was seeking \u201clegislative solutions to federal funds being used to demonetize, tarnish, or censor domestic small businesses on the basis of their lawful speech.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cRather than comply with the Committee\u2019s investigation into and oversight of the GEC\u2019s funding of third parties who engage in these activities, the State Department has, stunningly, provided only two documents totaling 12 pages, with heavy redactions, in the span of one year,\u201d the letter states.<\/p>\n<p>House Republicans are considering defunding GEC.<\/p>\n<p>The Daily Wire, The Federalist, and the state of Texas are <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/news\/daily-wire-and-the-federalist-sue-biden-state-department-over-censorship-effort\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">suing the State Department<\/a>, alleging that its promotion of companies that make lists used to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/congress-to-probe-media-rating-firm-newsguard-for-possible-taxpayer-funded-censorship\/\" title=\"Congress to Investigate NewsGuard Over Potential Taxpayer-Funded Censorship\">put conservative news outlets<\/a> out of business amounts to a violation of the First Amendment.<\/p>\n<p>GDI says it aims to destroy \u201cthe incentive to create [disinformation] for the purpose of garnering advertising revenues.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>GDI keeps its main blacklist secret, but publicly published its top 10 \u201criskiest\u201d outlets, which was essentially a list of America\u2019s most prominent and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/federal-judge-slaps-down-biden-administrations-attempt-to-dismiss-daily-wire-censorship-lawsuit\/\" title=\"Federal Judge Rejects Biden Administration's Bid to Dismiss Daily Wire Censorship Lawsuit\">mainstream conservative media publications<\/a>, including both The Daily Wire and The Federalist, as well as the New York Post, and Reason Magazine.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, an advertising trade group, the Global Alliance for Responsible Media, is being investigated by the House Judiciary Committee for potentially <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/news\/misinformation-honcho-says-jim-jordan-is-assaulting-ad-industry-by-asking-for-documents-that-could-prove-partisan-bias\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">violating anti-trust laws<\/a> for similar alleged activity.<\/p>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The State Department has withheld details from Congress regarding taxpayer funds spent on firms assessing domestic news outlets&#8217; credibility. These assessments have discouraged businesses from engaging with conservative media. Consequently, the House Small Business Committee issued a subpoena to the State Department to obtain this information<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":128,"featured_media":2269908,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/dw-wp-production.imgix.net\/2024\/04\/Blinken-scaled.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2269907","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/dw-wp-production.imgix.net\/2024\/04\/Blinken-scaled.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2269907","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/128"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2269907"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2269907\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2269908"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2269907"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2269907"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2269907"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}