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    06.07.2023 - Letter To Global Engagement Center - Small Business Committee

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    Gabe Kaminsky
    The Small Business Committee is investigating the Biden Administration's funding of non-profits that pressure companies to remove small businesses from platforms for their political views. The committee requests documents from the Global Engagement Center (GEC) on its grants to groups like the Global Disinformation Index, whose "dynamic exclusion list" has significantly reduced ad revenue to conservative sites. The committee argues this violates the First Amendment by censoring speech and using taxpayer dollars to circumvent constitutional protections. The committee has requested a list of all GEC grants from 2019 to present and the purpose documents for each grant.

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    06.07.2023 - Letter To Global Engagement Center - Small Business Committee

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    Gabe Kaminsky
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    The Small Business Committee is investigating the Biden Administration's funding of non-profits that pressure companies to remove small businesses from platforms for their political views. The committee requests documents from the Global Engagement Center (GEC) on its grants to groups like the Global Disinformation Index, whose "dynamic exclusion list" has significantly reduced ad revenue to conservative sites. The committee argues this violates the First Amendment by censoring speech and using taxpayer dollars to circumvent constitutional protections. The committee has requested a list of all GEC grants from 2019 to present and the purpose documents for each grant.

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    06.07.2023 - Letter to Global Engagement Center -- Small Business Committee

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    The Small Business Committee is investigating the Biden Administration's funding of non-profits that pressure companies to remove small businesses from platforms for their political views. The committee requests documents from the Global Engagement Center (GEC) on its grants to groups like the Global Disinformation Index, whose "dynamic exclusion list" has significantly reduced ad revenue to conservative sites. The committee argues this violates the First Amendment by censoring speech and using taxpayer dollars to circumvent constitutional protections. The committee has requested a list of all GEC grants from 2019 to present and the purpose documents for each grant.

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    © All Rights Reserved
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    4K views4 pages

    06.07.2023 - Letter To Global Engagement Center - Small Business Committee

    Uploaded by

    Gabe Kaminsky
    The Small Business Committee is investigating the Biden Administration's funding of non-profits that pressure companies to remove small businesses from platforms for their political views. The committee requests documents from the Global Engagement Center (GEC) on its grants to groups like the Global Disinformation Index, whose "dynamic exclusion list" has significantly reduced ad revenue to conservative sites. The committee argues this violates the First Amendment by censoring speech and using taxpayer dollars to circumvent constitutional protections. The committee has requested a list of all GEC grants from 2019 to present and the purpose documents for each grant.

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    of 4

    June 7, 2023

    Mr. James P. Rubin


    Special Envoy and Coordinator
    Global Engagement Center
    U.S. Department of State
    2201 C Street NW
    Washington, D.C. 20520

    Dear Mr. Rubin:

    The Small Business Committee, Subcommittee on Oversight, Investigations, and


    Regulations is conducting an investigation into the extent of the Biden Administration’s
    involvement and funding of non-profits and other non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that
    pressure advertising and social media companies to remove small businesses from their
    platforms because of their apparent political positions or the political opinions of the business
    owners. We write today to request documents and information as well as a staff briefing.

    As made evident through investigative reporting such as the ‘Twitter Files’ and the
    Washington Examiner’s ‘Disinformation Inc.’ series, various agencies within the federal
    government, including the Global Engagement Center (GEC), have been collaborating with the
    private sector to have user-generated content removed from various internet platforms.1 It has
    become clear that the federal government has undermined First Amendment principles by
    working to censor certain viewpoints by proxy.2 As you know, the First Amendment prohibits
    the government from imposing viewpoint-based censorship restrictions.3 It is inconsequential
    whether the government believes this speech is “disinformation”, “misinformation”, or
    “malinformation”- constitutional protection does not turn upon the truth, popularity, or social
    utility of the ideas and beliefs which are offered.4 One of the main purposes of the First

    1
    Hearing on the Weaponization of the Federal Government on the Twitter Files: Hearing Before the Select
    Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, Committee on the Judiciary, 118th Cong.
    (statement of Matt Taibbi); Matt Taibbi, New Knowledge, the Global Engagement Center, and State-Sponsored
    Blacklists, SUBSTACK (Mar. 2, 2023); Matt Taibbi, The Censorship Industrial Complex, SUBSTACK (Mar. 9, 2023);
    Gabe Kaminsky, How we uncovered a modern censorship regime, THE WASH. EXAMINER (Mar. 31, 2023).
    2
    Id.
    3
    Police Dep’t v. Mosley, 408 U.S. 92, 95 (1972), “ …the First Amendment means that government has no power to
    restrict expression because of its message, its ideas, its subject matter, or its content.”; see also U.S. Const. amend. I.
    4
    N.Y. Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254, 271-72, 84 S. Ct. 710, 721 (1964).
    Mr. James P. Rubin
    June 7, 2023
    Page 2 of 4

    Amendment’s Free Speech Clause is to foster “an uninhibited marketplace of ideas,” testing the
    “truth” of various ideas “in the competition of the market.”5

    Various non-profits and NGOs have made it their mission to have conservative-leaning
    companies removed from advertising platforms and exchanges under the guise of the businesses’
    purported use of “disinformation”, “misinformation”, or “malinformation”, thereby decimating
    their advertising revenue and aiming to make it impossible for these small businesses to compete
    in the digital market.6 The mission statement of one of these NGOs, the Global Disinformation
    Index (GDI), is to “remove the financial incentive” to create “disinformation” by issuance of its
    “dynamic exclusion list” that rates news outlets based on their alleged disinformation “risk”
    factor.7 GDI’s CEO stated that its exclusion list has “had significant impact on the advertising
    revenue that has gone to those sites”.8 An October 2022 brief by the GDI names several small
    conservative-leaning businesses as the top “riskiest sites”.9 A former State Department employee
    stated that “the implementation of ad revenue crushing sentinels like Newsguard, GDI, and the
    like has completely crippled the potential of alternative news sources to compete on an even
    economic playing field with “approved” media outlets like CNN and the New York Times.”10

    The GDI was a recipient of at least one recent GEC grant.11 This Committee wishes to
    understand the use of that grant, and any other GEC funding of similar entities whose actions
    have resulted in small businesses’ loss of profits and economic opportunities from the freedom of
    engaging in uncensored speech on online platforms. Using taxpayer dollars to bankroll third-
    parties in order to deplatform small businesses and censor private speech runs directly afoul of
    the State Action doctrine.12 The federal government cannot circumvent constitutional protections

    5
    Virginia v. Hicks, 539 U.S. 113, 119 (2003); Abrams v. United States, 250 U.S. 616, 630 (1919) (Holmes, J.,
    dissenting). Accord, e.g., Red Lion Broad. Co. v. FCC, 395 U.S. 367, 390 (1969).
    6
    Gabe Kaminsky, Disinformation Inc: Meet the groups hauling in cash to secretly blacklist conservative news, THE
    WASH. EXAMINER (Feb. 9, 2023); Colin Moynihan, The Defunders: A Sleeping Giants veteran and her partner
    pioneered a new way to fight disinformation. Is it accountability or censorship? N.Y. MAG. (Sep. 1, 2022).
    7
    Defunding Disinformation, GLOBAL DISINFORMATION INDEX, https://www.disinformationindex.org/mission (last
    visited May 3, 2023).
    8
    Clare Melford “I went down the rabbit hole”: Exploring the real-life effects of False Narratives, THE SAFETY
    TECH PODCAST (Mar. 17, 2022). The Safety Tech Innovation Network is funded by the United Kingdom’s
    Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport.
    9
    Brief: Disinformation Risk in the United States Online Media Market, GLOBAL DISINFORMATION INDEX (Oct. 21,
    2022), https://www.disinformationindex.org/research/2022-10-21-brief-disinformation-risk-in-the-united-states-
    online-media-market-october-2022/.
    10
    Gabe Kaminsky, Disinformation Inc: Meet the groups hauling in cash to secretly blacklist conservative news, THE
    WASH. EXAMINER (Feb. 9, 2023).
    11
    Gabe Kaminsky, Disinformation Inc: State Department bankrolls group secretly blacklisting conservative media,
    THE WASH. EXAMINER (Feb. 9, 2023).
    12
    Edmonson v. Leesville Concrete Co., Inc., 500 U.S. 614 (1991), "Although the conduct of private parties lies
    beyond the Constitution's scope in most instances, governmental authority may dominate an activity to such an
    extent that its participants must be deemed to act with the authority of the government and, as a result, be subject to
    constitutional constraints. This is the jurisprudence of state action, which explores the "essential dichotomy"
    between the private sphere and the public sphere, with all its attendant constitutional obligations."; VALERIE C.
    BRANNON, CONG. RESEARCH SERV., R45650, FREE SPEECH AND THE REGULATION OF SOCIAL MEDIA CONTENT
    (Mar. 27, 2019) “Government action regulating internet content would constitute state action that may implicate the
    First Amendment.”
    Mr. James P. Rubin
    June 7, 2023
    Page 3 of 4

    by using private actors to accomplish what the State itself is prohibited from doing.13 Recent
    media labeling the pursuit of truth about the extent of the censorship-industrial complex as akin
    to harassment in an effort to discredit the genuine issue that speech is being improperly stifled is
    misplaced and concerning.14

    It is the GEC’s responsibility to protect the United States from threats from foreign bad
    actors, not to facilitate harm to U.S. small businesses through intermediaries because the
    Administration disagrees with the speech or politics of the business owner. Accordingly, the
    Committee is requesting the following documentation as soon as possible, but no later than June
    21, 2023:

    1. Unredacted list of all GEC grant recipients and associated award numbers from FY 2019
    – present.

    2. Unredacted copies of all GEC Award Purpose and Objective Alignment documents from
    FY 2019 – present.

    To schedule the delivery of your response or ask any related follow-up questions, please
    contact the Committee on Small Business Staff at (202) 225-5821. The Committee on Small
    Business has broad authority to investigate “problems of all types of small business” under
    House Rule X. Thank you in advance for your cooperation with this inquiry.

    Sincerely,

    __________________________ __________________________
    Roger Williams Beth Van Duyne
    Chairman Chairman
    Committee on Small Business Subcommittee on Oversight,
    Investigations, and Regulations

    13
    Norwood v. Harrison, 413 U.S. 455, 465 (1973), “The government “may not induce, encourage, or promote
    private persons to accomplish what it is constitutionally forbidden to accomplish.”; Biden v. Knight First
    Amendment Institute at Columbia Univ., 141 S. Ct. 1220, 1226 (2021), A private entity thus violates the First
    Amendment “if the government coerces or induces it to take action the government itself would not be permitted to
    do, such as censor expression of a lawful viewpoint.” (Thomas, J., concurring).
    14
    Naomi Nix & Joseph Menn, Congress escalates push for researchers’ private documents, THE WASHINGTON
    POST (Jun. 6, 2023).
    Mr. James P. Rubin
    June 7, 2023
    Page 4 of 4

    cc: The Honorable Nydia M. Velasquez, Ranking Member


    Committee on Small Business

    The Honorable Kweisi Mfume, Ranking Member


    Subcommittee on Oversight, Investigations, and Regulations

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