by Micaela Burrow at Daily Caller
The House included a rule banning the Pentagon from contracting with organizations seeking to rate or police news sites, including groups accused of unfairly targeting conservatives, in the annual defense bill passed at committee level early Thursday morning.
The rule singles out the Global Disinformation Index (GDI), Graphika, NewsGuard and related organizations that target perceived online disinformation and rate news sources based on accuracy and transparency. United Kingdom-based GDI worked for the State Department while pushing to demonetize and deplatform conservative websites on various tech and social media platforms, raising concerns among activists and lawmakers that many so-called “fact checking” organizations may be biased in their judgements against right-leaning content.
“Proud to pass my amendment that prohibits the Department of Defense from contracting with any one of a number of “misinformation” or “disinformation” monitors that rate news and information sources,” Republican Rep. Rich McCormick of Georgia, who sponsored the amendment, said in a statement. “While these media monitors claim to be nonpartisan, the reality is they are not.” (RELATED: EXCLUSIVE: DHS Panel Courted Left-Wing Agents To Aid In ‘Misinformation’ Crackdown)
The amendment, adopted as part of the House Armed Services Committee’s 2024 National Defense Authorization Act passed early Thursday morning, blocks Pentagon funds from going to the Global Disinformation Index, Graphika, NewsGuard or “any other entity the function of which is to advise the censorship or blacklisting of news sources based on subjective criteria or political biases, under the stated function of ‘fact checking’ or otherwise removing ‘misinformation’” from the internet.
Advertising and marketing agencies the Department of Defense (DOD) employs to reach new recruits would have to certify they do not use any services from organizations, according to the text of the amendment…
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