In an attempt to crack down on “misinformation,” the DHS looked to left-wing groups for advice. With this in mind, it’s easy to see why conservatives always seem to be on the receiving end of censorship. 

From Daily Caller. A Department of Homeland Security (DHS) advisory panel helping the federal government crack down on misinformation pushed to enlist left-wing entities and individuals in its efforts, according to documents obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation.

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The Cybersecurity Infrastructure and Security Agency (CISA) Cybersecurity Advisory Committee’s (CSAC) Protecting Critical Infrastructure from Misinformation and Disinformation subcommittee was convened in December 2021 to provide CISA with recommendations for how to address misinformation, disinformation and malinformation (MDM) ahead of the 2022 midterm elections. However, internal meeting minutes, emails and notes obtained by the DCNF through a public records request reveal committee members frequently pushed to enlist outside left-wing groups and individuals linked to Democratic causes to further their efforts.

The subcommittee included DHS officials, former Twitter chief legal officer Vijaya Gadde, University of Washington professor Kate Starbird and former DHS official and Center of Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) adviser Suzanne Spaulding.

Gadde was frequently criticized for the censoring of conservatives on Twitter during her time at the platform. Moreover, she played a key role in Twitter’s censoring of the New York Post’s true story on business dealings by President Joe Biden’s son Hunter. …

Starbird, meanwhile, has vocally pursued left-wing activism, urging her followers to vote for Democrats in a Facebook post excoriating Republicans and former President Donald Trump, the latter of whom she described as speaking with “undertones” of “white supremacy and ethno-nationalism.”

These members, along with the rest of the subcommittee, were tasked with guiding CISA on how to combat mis- and disinformation perceived as threatening “critical functions” of democracy, including public health measures, the financial system, elections and the court system, according to the committee’s initial recommendations published in June 2022. These recommendations included detecting “threats,” working with “non-governmental” sources to mitigate mis- and disinformation and bankrolling research. …

Research And Resources

A list of CSAC resources, identified as “for official use only” and obtained by the DCNF, includes groups such as the Global Disinformation Index (GDI) that help censor conservatives online.

GDI, a U.K.-based company that aims to “disrupt the business model of disinformation,” works to demonetize conservative news sites, according to the Washington Examiner, through providing blacklists to ad tech companies which can then “defund and downrank” the worst offenders of disinformation. …

The CISA document referred to GDI as a “recently-funded research [project] that include[s] activities (such as detecting/analyzing disinformation campaigns) that align with CISA’s mission.”

The document also attached that label to the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD), a State Department-funded organization that routinely advocates for censorship of right-leaning speech, a previous DCNF investigation revealed.

For instance, the group categorizes as misinformation the comparison of abortion to murder, “climate delayism,” or the idea that climate change should not be addressed as urgently as some believe, and the “misgendering” of transgender individuals, the DCNF reported. ISD’s funders include left-wing billionaire Pierre Omidyar’s Omidyar Group, George Soros’ Open Society Foundations and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, according to its website. …