{"id":2316959,"date":"2024-07-31T17:59:02","date_gmt":"2024-07-31T21:59:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/florida-cfo-bans-left-wing-censors-from-agency-contracts\/"},"modified":"2024-07-31T18:08:38","modified_gmt":"2024-07-31T22:08:38","slug":"florida-cfo-bans-left-wing-censors-from-agency-contracts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/florida-cfo-bans-left-wing-censors-from-agency-contracts\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida CFO Bans Left-Wing Censors From Agency Contracts"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">16<\/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%2Fflorida-cfo-bans-left-wing-censors-from-agency-contracts%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=2316959&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>Florida&#8217;s\u200d Chief Financial Officer, \u200bJimmy Patronis, has announced a new directive that prohibits state financial service \u2062contracts with media-monitoring organizations like NewsGuard and the Global \u2063Disinformation Index (GDI). This\u200b move aims \u200cto combat \u200dwhat Patronis describes\u2062 as censorship\u2063 that stems\u200c from political biases and\u2062 viewpoint discrimination. \u2064He argues\u2062 that taxpayer money\u2064 should not be used to fund such censorship, which\u200b he claims can lead to the\u200c suppression of legitimate businesses expressing unpopular views.<\/p>\n<p>Patronis&#8217;s proclamation states that these media-rating organizations influence what \u2063constitutes credible news, often unfairly targeting\u2062 conservative outlets while favoring mainstream media with questionable accuracy records. The GDI, in particular, is criticized for maintaining \u200da blacklist of media outlets and influencing advertising decisions, \u2062a practice that has \u200ddrawn \u200cscrutiny from congressional investigations. Additionally, a lawsuit issued \u200bby Texas and media organizations against\u2063 the State Department highlights concerns over federal funding that supports these censorship efforts.<\/p>\n<p>The directive directly \u2062addresses the perceived unfairness in how these organizations assess \u2062news\u2062 credibility\u2064 and aims to protect Florida \u200bbusinesses and\u2063 consumers from what Patronis\u2062 views as abusive practices in the media landscape.  <\/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<div>\n<p>Florida&rsquo;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/tokyo-olympics-set-to-go-on-regardless-of-covid-19-pandemic\/\" title=\"Tokyo Olympics Set To Go On \u2018Regardless\u2019 Of COVID-19 Pandemic\">chief financial officer<\/a> took an axe to the censorship regime with a new directive barring state financial service contracts with media-monitoring services such as NewsGuard and the Global Disinformation Index.<\/p>\n<p>Florida Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis unveiled the <a href=\"https:\/\/myfloridacfo.com\/docs-sf\/cfo-news-libraries\/news-documents\/2024\/newsguard-directive-2024.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">proclamation <\/a>Wednesday to ban agency partnerships with groups that deliver news credibility ratings that &ldquo;are often rooted in political disagreements, subjective biases, and viewpoint discrimination, rather than factual inaccuracies, thereby amounting to censorship and blacklisting.&rdquo; Such ratings have been weaponized to censor non-leftist content with misinformation labels for factual reporting on stories such as Hunter Biden&rsquo;s laptop.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;No taxpayer money from my agency will fund censorship on my watch, and no Florida business should suffer simply because it expresses views that these groups don&rsquo;t like,&rdquo; Patronis <a href=\"https:\/\/myfloridacfo.com\/news\/pressreleases\/press-release-details\/2024\/07\/31\/cfo-patronis-issues-directive-barring-use-of-censorship-organizations-at-florida-agency\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">said <\/a>in a press release. &ldquo;Such news and information ratings activities appear to be part of a larger effort to create social credit scores, similar to ESG, that result in debanking and deplatforming legitimate private entities. That&rsquo;s wrong, and I will use my authority as CFO to protect businesses and consumers against these abusive tactics.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>The directive prohibits the Department of Financial Services from brokering contracts with censorship services such as NewsGuard, one of the most popular web extensions that&rsquo;s been <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2022\/01\/27\/left-wing-misinformation-group-will-help-teachers-union-indoctrinate-students-with-corrupt-media-propaganda\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">deployed <\/a>in K-12 classrooms across the country with the help of <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2023\/03\/13\/newsguard-claims-not-to-be-government-funded-but-a-750k-grant-suggests-otherwise\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">federal funding<\/a>. NewsGuard rates the credibility of news organizations to redirect users to what the pro-censorship group&rsquo;s administrators approve as credible. The censorship tool <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2022\/07\/22\/newsguard-downgrades-fox-news-while-rating-hunter-biden-story-censors-with-perfect-credibility\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">scored <\/a>legacy outlets &mdash; such as Politico, NPR, and the New York Times &mdash; with perfect credibility, despite their history of false reporting on major news, including Spygate, unsubstantiated Brett Kavanaugh allegations, and Biden family corruption. Meanwhile, it gave other outlets which correctly reported on these stories failing grades.<\/p>\n<p>The Global Disinformation Index (GDI) is another <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/miranda-devine-as-elon-musk-fights-censorship-states-take-aim-at-anthony-fauci-big-tech\/\" title=\"Miranda Devine: As Elon Musk Fights Censorship, States Take Aim at Anthony Fauci, Big Tech\">massive censorship operation<\/a> with <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2023\/02\/10\/expose-reveals-shadowy-left-wing-network-works-to-censor-deplatform-conservatives\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">taxpayer funding<\/a> that suggests to advertisers what websites are worth spending precious marketing dollars on. The index was exposed last year for keeping a list of&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2023\/02\/10\/expose-reveals-shadowy-left-wing-network-works-to-censor-deplatform-conservatives\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">blacklisted<\/a>&nbsp;websites, which included The Federalist, The American Spectator, Newsmax, The&nbsp;American Conservative,&nbsp;One America News, The&nbsp;Blaze,&nbsp;The&nbsp;Daily Wire,&nbsp;RealClearPolitics, Reason, and the&nbsp;New York Post. GDI&rsquo;s partners have included the U.S. State Department and&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/news\/disinformation-inc-state-department-backed-group-blacklisting-conservative-news\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">previously<\/a>&nbsp;the National Endowment for Democracy, the latter of which is almost entirely funded by the former. In June, the House Oversight Committee <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/politics\/house-gop-launches-investigation-federally-funded-news-ratings-groups-impact-free-speech\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">opened a probe<\/a> into the censorship regime&rsquo;s use of such &ldquo;disinformation&rdquo; services to crack down on dissident speech.<\/p>\n<p>Moreover, in December of 2023, the state of Texas, along with The Federalist and The Daily Wire, <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2023\/12\/06\/state-of-texas-joins-the-federalist-daily-wire-in-suing-the-federal-censorship-industrial-complex\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">issued <\/a>a lawsuit against the State Department for its funding of NewsGuard and GDI. The lawsuit <a href=\"https:\/\/dw-wp-production.imgix.net\/2023\/12\/DailyWire-v-State-final.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">alleges <\/a>that through these organizations the State Department &ldquo;is actively intervening in the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/daily-wire-texas-ag-ask-court-to-block-state-departments-domestic-misinformation-efforts\/\" title=\"Daily Wire and Texas AG seek court intervention to halt State Department&#039;s domestic &#039;misinformation&#039; campaign\">news-media market<\/a> to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/spotify-gears-up-to-silence-political-opponents-under-guise-of-election-integrity\/\" title=\"Spotify Prepares to Mute Political Rivals Citing &#039;Election Integrity\">render disfavored press outlets unprofitable<\/a> by funding the infrastructure, development, and marketing and promotion of censorship technology and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/conservative-outlets-and-texas-request-court-halt-biden-censorship-scheme-in-lawsuit\/\" title=\"Conservative outlets and Texas request court halt Biden \u2018censorship scheme\u2019 in lawsuit\">private censorship enterprises<\/a> to covertly suppress speech of a segment of the American press.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p><strong>[READ:[READ:<a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2023\/03\/14\/why-newsguard-is-just-as-bad-as-the-pro-censorship-global-disinformation-index\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Why NewsGuard Is Just As Bad As The Pro-Censorship Global Disinformation Index<\/a>]<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>NewsGuard and GDI were explicitly named in Wednesday&rsquo;s proclamation with Graphika Technologies, in addition to &ldquo;other similar organizations [which] are attaching largely subjective &lsquo;credibility ratings&rsquo; and &lsquo;misinformation&rsquo; labels to news sources.&rdquo; Graphika is a vehicle of artificial intelligence aimed at countering &ldquo;disinformation&rdquo; and was <a href=\"https:\/\/time.com\/collection\/time100-companies-2023\/6285204\/graphika\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">named <\/a>by Time Magazine as one of the top 100 most influential companies in 2023.<\/p>\n<p>Patronis had previously <a href=\"https:\/\/myfloridacfo.com\/news\/pressreleases\/press-release-details\/2023\/12\/20\/cfo-patronis--florida-will-bar-taxpayer-support-of-media-censorship-companies\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">tried <\/a>to implement Wednesday&rsquo;s proclamation across the entire state government through legislation, but the effort failed at the end of the last legislative session.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;I may not be able to control it on a statewide, but I can definitely do that within our office,&rdquo; Patronis told The Federalist, adding he hopes the move to prohibit partnerships between censorship groups and his agency of more than 3,000 will inspire lawmakers to take up the issue again in his own state, and others. <\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;We turn up the visibility of the issue&rdquo; to &ldquo;catch some momentum,&rdquo; and &ldquo;and then ultimately Washington reacts,&rdquo; he added. <\/p>\n<hr>\n<p>      Tristan Justice is the western correspondent for The Federalist and the author of Social Justice Redux, a conservative newsletter on culture, health, and wellness. He has also written for The Washington Examiner and The Daily Signal. His work has also been featured in Real Clear Politics and Fox News. Tristan graduated from George Washington University where he majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow him on Twitter at @JusticeTristan or contact him at Tristan@thefederalist.com. Sign up for Tristan&#8217;s email newsletter <a href=\"https:\/\/socialjusticeredux.substack.com\/about\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Florida&#8217;s Chief Financial Officer has taken significant action against censorship by issuing a new directive that prohibits state financial service contracts with media-monitoring organizations like NewsGuard and the Global Disinformation Index. On Wednesday, CFO Jimmy Patronis announced this ban on collaborations with entities that provide news credibility ratings, which he argues are frequently influenced by political biases and subjective opinions rather than factual inaccuracies, effectively constituting censorship and blacklisting. He criticized these ratings for being used to label non-leftist content as misinformation, particularly regarding stories such as Hunter Biden&#8217;s laptop.<\/p>\n<p>Patronis stated in a press release, &#8220;No taxpayer money from my agency will fund censorship on my watch,&#8221; emphasizing that Florida businesses should not face repercussions for expressing unpopular views. He expressed concern that these rating systems are part of a broader initiative to create social credit scores akin to ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) metrics, leading to the deplatforming of legitimate businesses. He pledged to use his authority as CFO to safeguard both businesses and consumers from such practices.<\/p>\n<p>The directive specifically prevents the Department of Financial Services from entering into contracts with censorship services like NewsGuard\u2014widely used in K-12 classrooms through federal funding\u2014which rates news organizations&#8217; credibility based on its administrators&#8217; approval. Notably, it has rated established outlets like Politico and NPR highly despite their history of inaccurate reporting while penalizing others for accurately covering controversial topics.<\/p>\n<p>The Global Disinformation Index (GDI) is another major entity funded by taxpayers that advises advertisers on which websites are worth their marketing investments. Last year it was revealed that GDI maintained a blacklist of sites including The Federalist and The Daily Wire. GDI has collaborated with entities such as the U.S. State Department and previously received support from the National Endowment for Democracy.<\/p>\n<p>In December 2023, Texas joined forces with The Federalist and The Daily Wire in suing the State Department over its funding of NewsGuard and GDI. They claim this funding allows the State Department to manipulate the media landscape against certain press outlets by supporting technologies aimed at suppressing dissenting voices.<\/p>\n<p>Patronis explicitly mentioned NewsGuard and GDI in his proclamation alongside Graphika Technologies\u2014a company utilizing AI technology against &#8220;disinformation&#8221; recognized by Time Magazine as one of 2023&#8217;s most influential companies.<\/p>\n<p>Although Patronis had attempted earlier legislation aimed at extending this proclamation statewide\u2014an effort that ultimately failed\u2014he remains hopeful about inspiring lawmakers across Florida and beyond to revisit this issue: \u201cWe turn up visibility&#8230;to catch some momentum,\u201d he remarked about potentially prompting action at higher levels of government<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":494,"featured_media":2316960,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/24122192519_84824ba8fd_k-e1722450077594.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[36817,6371,6138,5113,5129],"class_list":["post-2316959","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-agency-contracts","tag-censorship","tag-cfo","tag-florida","tag-left-wing"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/24122192519_84824ba8fd_k-e1722450077594.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2316959","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\/494"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2316959"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2316959\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2316960"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2316959"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2316959"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2316959"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}