State Department turns over some records about Global Disinformation Index

The Bader Family Foundation sued the State Department for various documents about the Global Disinformation Index on April 20. The Global Disinformation Index is a London-based organization funded by the State Department that compiled a blacklist of conservative and non-liberal publications for advertisers to avoid.[¹]

On July 7, U.S. District Judge Jia M. Cobb ordered the State Department to release the records in monthly installments, and to review at least 500 pages per month for material than is subject to release under the Freedom of Information Act (as opposed to being covered by one of FOIA’s 9 exemptions).

The State Department released its first monthly installment today. The 73 pages released contain internal State Department discussions of how to respond to Congressman Darrell Issa, and reporters like Gabe Kaminsky of the Washington Examiner, Valerie Richardson of the Washington Times, Michael Gordon of the Wall Street Journal, Ailan Evans of the Daily Caller, and Benen O’Brien of Fox News. The discussions are heavily redacted, and the redacted material won’t be released unless I successfully challenge the redactions as not covered by Exemption 5’s deliberative-process privilege later in the lawsuit.

The single largest chunk of the internal communications it produced discussed how to respond to Washington Examiner columnist Gabe Kaminsky’s emails.

It also contains the lengthy political spin given to Wall Street Journal reporter Michael Gordon about the State Department’s Global Engagement Center and its role in funding the Global Disinformation Index. The fullest explanation of the State Department’s position about its role in fighting perceived disinformation is found in an April 11, 2023 email to Michael Gordon, which is reproduced at the bottom of this blog post.

Various responses were provided by State Department staff “on background” with journalists like Gabe Kaminsky and Michael Gordon, apparently to avoid their names being used in news stories about the Global Disinformation Index.

The State Department redacts names in emails when some agencies wouldn’t, such as repeatedly redacting the name of its own “Public Affairs Specialist,” even though this is not highly sensitive information.

If you find anything in the State Department emails that really piques your curiosity, but contains big redactions, let me know, because I sometimes settle FOIA lawsuits without challenging redactions if no one really cares what is in a redaction.

A State Department spokesperson told the Washington Examiner that Disinfo Cloud, an appendage of the State Department’s Global Engagement Center, gave $100,000 to the Global Disinformation Index.

The Global Disinformation Index has blacklisted news outlets critical of the Biden administration in an effort to starve them of advertising dollars. Meanwhile, it has praised left-leaning outlets such as HuffPost that have lost libel lawsuits after repeatedly making false claims, giving them its highest ratings despite their history of factual errors.

A major internet ad agency, Xandr, told companies last year that it was “partnering with the Global Disinformation Index (‘GDI’) and will be adopting their exclusion list.” Former State Department official Mike Benz said that the fiscal impact of such blacklists is “devastating.” He said “ad revenue crushing sentinels” like the Global Disinformation Index have “crippled the potential of alternative news sources to compete on an even economic playing field with approved media outlets.

As Jacob Sullum noted in the Chicago Sun-Times, the Global Disinformation Index’s methodology is rife with contradictions. It has claimed that “disinformation” is inherently “intentionally misleading” yet its “its ‘risk’ ratings do not require any actual examples of inaccurate reporting, let alone deliberate misrepresentations” by the web sites it gives bad ratings to in its Disinformation Index. GDI said that a bad rating does not even require proof of “intent to deceive” because, GDI says, that “cannot be directly measured.” Nor does it even require a showing that a news outlet has made a claim that “at the very least,” is factually “false,” because that, GDI claims, is “extremely difficult to assess at scale” and because “a statement that is technically true can be presented out of context in a misleading and harmful way.”

GDI claimed that the 10 “riskiest” news outlets for disinformation are the New York Post, Reason, the American Spectator, Newsmax, the Federalist, the American Conservative, One America News, the Blaze, the Daily Wire, and RealClearPolitics. Most of these are conservative publications that criticize the Biden administration, except for Reason, a libertarian magazine that criticizes civil-liberties violations by both Democrats and Republicans (and has won journalism awards for its reporting), and RealClearPolitics, a political news and polling-data aggregator.

GDI’s explanation for giving these publications bad ratings does not even suggest that most of them made factually false claims. GDI’s explanation of its rating for the New York Post admitted that “GDI’s study did not review specific high-profile stories and attempt to determine whether they were disinformation.” The closest it came to asserting factual inaccuracy was in explaining its rating of the American Conservative, which it alleged — without any specific examples — was prone to “unsubstantiated claims” and “logical fallacies.”

By contrast, GDI gave high ratings to left-leaning publications such as HuffPost that frequently make false claims and engage in slanted, sensationalistic coverage. GDI’s co-founder, Clare Melford, wrote for HuffPost in the past. GDI claimed that “HuffPost largely featured fact-based, unbiased content.” It claimed that among the “ten lowest risk online news outlets” were Huffpost, Buzzfeed News, NPR, ProPublica, the Associated Press, and Insider.

The records released by the State Department are available at this link: https://libertyunyiel1.wpenginepowered.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/SEARCHABLE-1st-FOIA-production-in-BFF-v-State-Dept.-FL-2023-00062-August-2023-Production-1.pdf

[Footnote 1] See, e.g., Walter Olson, The U.S. State Department Funds an Ad‐​Blacklisting Group. It Shouldn’t, Cato Institute, Feb. 13, 2013; Gabe Kaminsky, Disinformation Inc: Left-wing groups funneled millions to entity blacklisting conservative news, Washington Examiner, Feb. 15, 2023; Valerie Richardson, Soros-backed ‘disinformation’ group aims to defund conservative news, Washington Times, Feb. 13, 2023.

April 11, 2023 email from State Department to Michael Gordon of the Wall Street Journal re: March 9 “Twitter Files” Accusations Against the Global Engagement Center

Michael,

On background as a State Department Spokesperson

Claims that the GEC is part of a “disinformation industry” that seeks to censor the views of American Citizens who disagree with Administration Policy.

• • • The GEC’s mandate is to coordinate with other federal agencies to direct, lead, synchronize and coordinate the efforts of the U.S. government to understand the sources and trends of foreign malign actors’ attempts to spread disinformation and propaganda outside of the United States.
    • The GEC builds overseas partner capacity to recognize and counter malign influence; supports the research and exposure of foreign actors’ propaganda and disinformation activities and methods; and supports quality, independent, and factual information for vulnerable audiences outside the United States.

Quote: Special Envoy Rubin before State Department Reporters 3/13/23

“The GEC has been getting a little attention in an unusual way. Let me just say, first of all, that as a former Senate staffer that congressional oversight is important. I believe in it.

“The GEC has been getting a little attention in an unusual way. Let me just say, first of all, that as a former Senate staffer that congressional oversight is important. I believe in it.

“It is also important to understand what the GEC does and doesn’t do. We are here to counter foreign disinformation. We operate against the efforts by Russia and China, Iran, and others who misuse or manipulate the information environment to our detriment.”

“We believe that disinformation and information manipulation is a serious threat to our national security. We address it through multiple means, but we address it internationally. That’s what we do; we counter it internationally.

“We are not trying to decide what is true. That is a metaphysical question that I wouldn’t know how to begin to address. We don’t content moderate. Those people that suggest that just don’t understand what it is that we do. What we do, as I said, is counter foreign disinformation and information manipulation. I believe it is a threat that is growing. It is serious; that is why Secretary Blinken asked me to come back and work on it. I’ve been working with him and with Ned and others to try to step up our game in this space because it’s a real, real problem all over the world.

“Let me explain the most recent example of that. Clearly in the Ukraine context, China and Russia have aligned themselves in the information domain. China and Russia both have a false casus bellow for this war — that’s a near complete alignment in the information space. That’s a problem I work on. That’s in my area (inaudible) and it is an example of why this information domain is so serious.”

Questions and Answers

Question: Does the GEC pressure private U.S. companies to suppress or ban on-line content?

Answer:

• • No, we don’t tell social media companies what to do.
  • The GEC’s mission is to recognize, understand, eKpose, and counter foreign state and foreign non-state propaganda and disinformation.
  • Social media companies and platforms develop and apply their own terms for users, their content moderation decisions are independent.
  • The GEC does not focus on U.S. social media accounts.

Question: How does the GEC counter foreign malign influence?

Answer:

• • • • The GEC leverages research, data analytics, technology, and a network of partner nations, academia, and civil society groups to identify and expose foreign malign influence and propaganda and build international societal resilience to malign influence.
      • The GEC’s programs include building up resiliency of overseas audiences, exposing origins of foreign malign influence, training independent journalists in vulnerable countries, and promoting critical thinking to overseas audiences through online programming.

Question: Does the GEC meet with American private sector social media companies?

Answer:

• • • • The GEC does maintain dialogue with social media platforms to support its mission and better understand techniques, trends and origins of foreign malign influence and propaganda.

Question: Did the GEC fund the Global Disinformation Index (GDI) to censor and “blacklist” conservative voices in the United States?

Answer:

• • • • The GEC did not fund GDI to study, analyze, or report on social media platforms or accounts inside the United States.
      • The GEC’s work with GDI was limited to counter-foreign malign influence efforts in East Asia and Europe.
      • The GEC’s award with GDI started in October 2021 and ended on March 5, 2022.

Question: You claim you did not fund GDI’s blacklist, but isn’t all money fungible? Couldn’t they have used your funding for something else?

Answer:

• • • • No.
      • Under the terms of the award, the funding could not be used for any other GDI project or purpose and only covered activities on GEC’s project from October 27, 2021, through December 31, 2021.

Question: Did the GEC fail to adequately vet grant recipients? Even if GEC’s GDI grant was only for activities in Europe and Asia, it should have done due diligence to ensure the organization wasn’t censoring Americans.

Answer:

• • • • The GEC —as with the Department and other federal entities — has a thorough and deliberate vetting process for all grant recipients, including the Global Disinformation Index.
      • The State Department’s Office of Inspector General reviewed the S.-Paris Tech Challenge and highlighted the Tech Challenge program in a “Spotlight on Success” in its 2022 report on the GEC.

Question: Did the GEC suppress narratives around the origins of COVID-19 and censor Americans who believe the virus began at the Wuhan Institute of Virology?

Answer:

• • • • No, as already discussed, the GEC does not suppress narratives.

Question: Does the GEC work with Silicon Valley and “Big Tech” to censor free speech?

Answer:

• • • • Decisions about the suspension or removal of particular content and/or accounts are made by the social media platforms themselves, according to their own policies.
      • The GEC maintains information-sharing relationships with these platforms to share analyses of malign actors’ information manipulation originating overseas directed at audiences outside of the United States.

Question: Did the GEC develop the Hamilton 68 dashboard, which maps disinformation-spreading accounts and allegedly tracked U.S.-based conservative accounts? Additionally, a former GEC contractor left the GEC to lead the Hamilton 68 project a month before its public release.

Answer:

• • • • The GEC has no contractual relationship with Hamilton 68 nor its current version, Hamilton 2.0.
      • The GEC did not provide funding directly or indirectly to Hamilton
      • The GEC did not work with Hamilton 68 or collaborate on the development of this tool.

Question: Did the GEC ask Twitter to suspend 5500 accounts that it believed were “Chinese… accounts” engaged in “state-backed coordinated manipulation?”

Answer:

• • • • On May 11, 2020, the GEC shared a sample of 5,500 accounts with Twitter but incorrectly characterized them as “suspicious” in an initial communication with Twitter.
      • During a meeting with Twitter the following day, the GEC corrected the record and explained that the accounts were used to demonstrate how the GEC constructed the networks necessary to run the analysis.
      • At no time, did the GEC request that Twitter take action on these accounts.

Question: How long did it take for the GEC to discover its error and tell Twitter?

Answer:

• • • • 24 hours.
      • On May 11, 2020, GEC shared 5,500 accounts via email with Twitter to demonstrate the underlying methodology for GEC’s analysis.
      • In that email correspondence, the GEC incorrectly labeled the 5,500 accounts as “suspicious.”

• • • • 24 hours later, the GEC met with Twitter and corrected the record on May 12, 2020.

Question: Did the GEC use the Atlantic Council’s DFRLab to fund programming to suspend the Twitter accounts of American citizens?

Answer:

• • • • No.
      • The GEC has no insight into the activities of DFRLab related to these accusations.
      • As with other accusations, the authors commenting on this seem to have conflated unrelated activities.
      • The GEC had a separate relationship with the Atlantic Council, which moderated the GEC’s online S.-Paris Tech Challenge in 2021, but this activity had nothing to do with Twitter.

Question: Has the GEC been used to interfere in U.S. elections?

Answer:

• • • • No. The role of the GEC is to identify foreign state and non-state foreign malign influence aimed at undermining or influencing the national security of the United States, its allies, and partners.

Question: How does the GEC determine what is disinformation and what is an exaggeration or policy difference?

Answer:

• • • • The GEC determines that a foreign statement or article of information is “disinformation” based on its: 1. satisfying the GEC’s operating definition for foreign malign influence, which is “false or misleading foreign-based information that is deliberately created or spread with intent to deceive,” as 2. evidenced through contradiction by authoritative sources and a totality of the circumstances analysis that takes into consideration an array of characteristics that includes the credibility, motivations, state actor affiliations, and messaging history of the disinformation source.
      • Exaggeration, or the promotion of a policy position by a foreign actor antithetical to U.S. interests or policy could fall under the rubric of “propaganda,” defined within the GEC as, “true, partially true, or false information intended to advance an actor’s interests by influencing the attitudes, perceptions, or behaviors of an audience.”
      • By law, the GEC focuses on networks of foreign actor disinformation and propaganda aimed at undermining or influencing the policies, security or stability of the United States and U.S. allies and partner nations, not on individuals just because they are critical of U.S. policies.

Question: Does the GEC employ a surreptitious approach to “counter- disinformation,” sending companies like Twitter voluminous reports on foreign “ecosystems” — in practice, blacklists?

Answer:

• • • • No. When engaging with social media companies, the GEC clearly states that no action is requested.
      • Data is shared solely in the hopes of comparing notes and engaging in a methodological
      • The GEC employs replicable open-source methods to analyze how threat actors, like the PRC and Russia, are likely leveraging large networks of fake accounts to game suggestion algorithms and inorganically amplify propaganda or foreign malign influence.

Question: Is the GEC an incubator for the domestic “censorship-industrial complex?”

Answer:

• • • • The GEC focuses on countering foreign malign influence and propaganda from Russia, the People’s Republic of China (PRC), Iran, and foreign terrorist organizations and violent extremists such as ISIS and aI-Qa’ida that create, disseminate, and amplify intentionally false or misleading information to manipulate public perception and undermine the United States’ national security.

Question: Does the GEC fund a secret list of subcontractors?

Answer:

• • • • No.
      • The GEC, in coordination with the programming office and the potential recipient, is responsible for determining whether disclosing award information on USASpending.gov would threaten national security, jeopardize the safety of a recipient or its beneficiaries, or when private, and therefore protected, information about individuals would be revealed.

Question: Did the GEC ask Twitter to review 499 accounts as “foreign” disinformation, for reasons that include using Signal to communicate and tweeting the hashtag, #IraniansDebateWithBiden?

Answer: No.

Question: Do the GEC and GEC-funded contractors also target left-friendly movements like the gilets jaunes (yellow vests), socialist media outlets like Canada’s Global Research, even the Free Palestine movement?

Answer:

• • • • The GEC does not seek to diminish the organic conversation — but our adversaries certainly see an opportunity to achieve their political objectives by coopting these movements.
      • Hostile foreign governments do target social movements in other It is our mandate to learn how these foreign governments are trying to manipulate public opinion of these movements with foreign malign influence.

Question: Does the GEC hide its grant award recipients?

Answer:

• • • • No. The majority of the GEC’s awards are publicly available.
      • The GEC, in coordination with the programming office and the potential recipient, is responsible for determining whether disclosing award information on USASpending.gov would threaten national security interests, jeopardize the safety of a recipient or its beneficiaries, or when private information about individuals would be revealed.

Question: Does the GEC play up cyber-threats for political and financial gain?

Answer:

• • • • This claim is an outright fabrication.
      • The GEC’s work is funded and directed through bipartisan Congressional legislation and appropriations.