Florida Based ‘International Fact Checking Network’ – a Prominent Censorship Group – Is Funded by State Department Cutout and Operates in US to Silence Independent Media and American Voices
Investigative reporter “Bad Kitty Unleashed” on X released a BOMBSHELL REPORT on the US State Department funding the international censorship group International Fact Checking Network (IFCN).
IFCN, despite being funded by the State Department, operates in the US.
Bad Kitty Unleashed reported:
This is a massive scandal! The State Department, who legally can’t operate in the US, has been funding US fact checking since 2015! Yes, it’s earliest days!
The news orgs that operate under the IFCN flag, such as the Washington Post, do the leg work. Which then results in posts on Facebook etc being labeled and the algorithms throttling the post.
This official International Fact Checking Network is also partnered with Google. Poynter’s IFCN was funded by the CIA linked, State Department’s National Endowment for Democracy and Omidyar grants.
Recall Google initiated the first ever US censorship program and expanded it globally by using the First Draft Consortium. First Draft also worked hand in hand with the IFCN. Poynters Politifact was in the First Draft network.
Here’s more on the recently discovered US government-funded censorship programs.
Here is the timeline of events.
April 2015 – First Draft Consortium started by Google
June 2015 – Official First Draft Announcement comes out. Along with its Google News Lab partnership announcement (obviously)
Aug 2015 – Google News Lab partners with Poynter
Sept 2015 – IFCN is launched by Poynter
Oct 2015 – Poynter launches IFCN with State Dept NED funding
Oct 2017 – Google news lab partners with IFCN specifically
Dec 2018 – Poynter acquires Politifact
Next I’ll list some key quotes from IFCN’s beginnings:
Oct 21, 2015 – “Today marks the online launch of the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN) at Poynter. This informal network, a forum for fact-checkers from five continents, is born out of the desire to study and discuss fact-checking as a journalistic instrument worldwide.
The IFCN is supported by grants from the Omidyar Network and the National Endowment for Democracy.”
“Poynter’s partnership with Google is the institute’s first major alliance with a digital technology company.”
Now showing US links is easy.
“Led by the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN) at the Poynter Institute, FactChat is the first collaborative project to unite U.S. fact-checking organizations with two major Spanish-language news broadcasters to fight mis/disinformation during the 2020 presidential campaign.”
“Facebook users in the US and Germany can now flag articles they think are deliberately false, these will then go to third-party fact checkers signed up with the IFCN.
Those fact checkers come from media organisations like the Washington Post and websites such as the urban legend debunking site Snopes.
Another warning appears if users try to share the story, although Facebook doesn’t prevent such sharing or delete the fake news story. The “fake” tag will however negatively impact the story’s score in Facebook’s algorithm, meaning that fewer people will see it pop up in their news feeds.”
“Alexios Mantzarlis at first led the IFCN:
Then he moved to GOOGLE NEWS LAB. And is now Principal, Google Trust & Safety Intelligence. As Director of the IFCN, he helped draft the fact-checkers’ code of principles and shepherded a seminal partnership between fact-checkers and Facebook.”
Now let’s head into Brazil:
– Cristina Tardáguila, NED FELLOW, Founder of Agência Lupa and was at Brazil misinfocon with Zommer. Both were GDI advisors. Cristina Tardáguila is the IFCN Associate Director.
– Laura Zommer is Zommer isn the board of the IFCN and Género & Numero from Brazil. She’s also the Executive and Editor-in-Chief at Chequeado, the first initiative of fact-checking and verification of public discourse in Latin America.
Knight Fellow Laura Zommer started Factchequeado, a journalism and education hub to stem disinfo flows in Spanish-language platforms in the US.
Factchequeado will use innovative approaches developed by Chequeado and Maldita in Latin America and Spain – introducing a WhatsApp tipline to involve audiences in fact-checking. Factchequeado is a collaborative alliance with Latino media and fact-checking orgs.
The IFCN announced in 2015 that they were funded by the State Department’s National Endowment for Democracy.
On Tuesday, The Washington Examiner reported on how the State Department skirted the law and funded censorship groups.
An office housed within the State Department is faulted in a new congressional report with flouting its mandate to thwart foreign disinformation through its funding of groups engaged in “censorship” against small businesses in the United States.
“This interim report outlines how government agencies are working with the private sector to ensure that certain businesses do not have a fair chance to compete online,” said Rep. Roger Williams (R-TX), who chairs the House Small Business Committee. “Even worse, this report uncovers how taxpayer dollars contributed to the censorship that picks winners and losers in the online marketplace.”
The 66-page report was prepared by investigators on the Republican-led House Small Business Committee. For over a year, the panel has sought sprawling funding records from the State Department’s Global Engagement Center on its programs fighting alleged disinformation and misinformation. That investigation began due to a series of Washington Examiner reports on the office bankrolling the Global Disinformation Index — a British group pressuring advertisers to defund right-of-center media outlets in the U.S.
The release of the report comes as the Global Engagement Center, which has an estimated budget of $61 million and a staff of 125, faces the potential to lose funding over GOP-led frustrations about its involvement with apparent domestic censorship groups. A provision through the annual State Department appropriations bill, which passed the House this summer and will be negotiated in the Senate, aims to ban future checks to the GEC. The office is also facing a lawsuit from conservative media outlets over the $100,000 the GEC sent to GDI and its support of a company called NewsGuard that rates the “misinformation” levels of news outlets.
Titled “Instruments and Casualties of the Censorship-Industrial Complex,” the House report argues the GEC promoted “tech start-ups and other small businesses in the disinformation detection space to private sector entities with domestic censorship capabilities.” Moreover, the report argues the National Endowment for Democracy, a State Department-funded nonprofit group that awarded hundreds of thousands of dollars to GDI, “violated its international restrictions by collaborating with fact-checking entities in assessing domestic press businesses’ admission to a credibility organization.”
Bad Kitty Unleashed also published several tweets on Google’s work in the censorship apparatus.
And this is what you call bringing the baby home. Massive document found right here with Google admitting everything! Google is synonymous with disinfo work!
Google News Lab created the First Draft Coalition in April 2015. Then announced it formally in June 2015.
In August… pic.twitter.com/YYGmc81mYR
— Bad Kitty Unleashed (@pepesgrandma) September 11, 2024
February 12, 2018 Poynter Expands Fact-Checking Franchise by Acquiring PolitiFact.
“Though Poynter owns the Tampa Bay Times newspaper — which created the PolitiFact initiative in 2007 –the formal acquisition and relocation allows Poynter to expand its fact-check training and… pic.twitter.com/3KKnzticB6
— Bad Kitty Unleashed (@pepesgrandma) September 11, 2024
This is just more evidence that the US Government is funding outlets to silence independent media like The Gateway Pundit and prominent online voices.
The Gateway Pundit’s Jim Hoft is currently involved in the Murthy vs. Missouri lawsuit. The investigation continues in this lawsuit on how the government was pushing social media to silence our website and others.
** The Gateway Pundit reached out to The International Fact Checking Network to request more information on their government funding and silencing of American voices.
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