Org Dedicated to ‘Transparency’ Hides Tax Filings

A State Department-funded organization that purports to combat opaque operations within websites and media stands accused of hypocritically and illegally hiding its own funders and officers.

The stated mission of the Global Disinformation Index (GDI), a not-for-profit organization, and its affiliates, as declared on its IRS Form 990 disclosure, is to serve as a “nonpartisan organization that combats disinformation both in the United States and globally through the creation of public ratings of media sources that assess their disinformation risk using objective criteria.”

… The New Civil Liberties Alliance, a legal advocacy center that filed the suit on behalf of Texas and the aggrieved media entities, characterized the federal funding as a return of the “Disinformation” Governance Board, a program under the Department of Homeland Security that was scrapped in 2022 due to public outcry.

“George Orwell, call your office: The Disinformation Governance Board is back!” Peggy Little, senior litigation counsel for the New Civil Liberties Alliance, said in a statement on the organization’s website. “Your State Department — which may only address foreign affairs — has been secretly scheming with and funding private companies to create blacklists of conservative media outlets to defund and silence speech with which it disagrees.”

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January 31, 2024

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Originally Published in The Dallas Express