In an attempt at damage control, the State Department sought to discredit two reporters and a member of Congress who had exposed their involvement in helping fund an advertiser’s “blacklist” of The Post and other outlets allegedly spreading “misinformation.” Internal documents reveal that in March 2023, the department distributed press guidance on how to counter the reports by Matt Taibbi and Gabe Kaminsky regarding the State’s Global Engagement Center (GEC.
Taibbi’s first report about the GEC, published in a lengthy Twitter thread in January 2023, revealed efforts by US social media platforms early in the COVID-19 pandemic to censor Americans online, allegedly in an attempt to counter “disinformation.” The State Department’s press guidance dismissed Taibbi and Kaminsky’s reports as “often missing” or presented out of context.
Kaminsky uncovered a $100,000 grant from GEC to the London-based Global Disinformation Index (GDI) in 2021 and 2022, which calls itself “the world’s first rating of the media sites based on the risk of the outlet carrying disinformation.” Despite GEC’s mandate stating it is only involved in international affairs, GDI went on to create a blacklist of 10 outlets, including The Post, with conservative or libertarian-leaning opinion sections in an attempt to demonetize them.
The State Department records make no mention of these taxpayer-funded entities’ conduct, instead choosing to blame Taibbi, Kaminsky, and Elon Musk for spreading alleged falsehoods about GEC. In response to the allegations, a spokesperson for the State Department said that “the Global Engagement Center does not engage in censorship,” focusing on countering foreign disinformation overseas and not on the domestic information environment.
