Microsoft is stonewalling on providing key details about its touted "review" into the State Department-funded Global Disinformation Index after suspending its relationship with the self-styled British "disinformation" tracker earlier this year.
Following multiple Washington Examiner reports in February, Microsoft announced that it had "stopped using GDI's services" as part of an investigation, while internal data showed that the corporation removed negative flags for conservative websites temporarily that likened them to peddling "disinformation." However, Microsoft has yet to provide basic information about its purported inquiry into GDI and when it will make a final decision on whether it will resume the controversial partnership.
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"The more transparency the better," Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, a conservative watchdog group, told the Washington Examiner. "This is part of the Censorship Industrial Complex and it ought to be the subject of congressional inquiries. Whatever Microsoft said they're doing is not nearly enough because of the government funding. Congress has an obligation to pursue it."
GDI received roughly $960,000 combined in grants from 2020 to 2022 from the State Department's Global Engagement Center and a government-backed nonprofit group called the National Endowment for Democracy, which is supported through congressional appropriations. The NED said in mid-February that it would no longer be providing money to GDI "to avoid the perception that NED is engaged in any work domestically, directly or indirectly."
The NED's major move came after the Washington Examiner detailed how GDI has spearheaded a covert operation feeding advertisers blacklists of conservative websites, including the New York Post, RealClearPolitics, and Reason, with the aim of defunding and shutting down websites with disfavored speech. Just last month, the multinational software company Oracle announced that it was severing its "relationship" with GDI over "free speech" concerns.
On Feb. 10, the Washington Examiner obtained leaked data from sources in the advertising industry that showed how Xandr, a major Microsoft-owned ad company, flagged dozens of conservative websites as "false/misleading." One day later, on Feb. 11, Microsoft informed the Washington Examiner about its decision to conduct a "larger review."
Nothing is known about this review, other than its alleged existence. Microsoft's spokeswoman, Kate Frischmann, has not said who is conducting it, how long it will last, or the review's findings. Nor has Matthew Ballard, executive vice president and managing director at the public relations firm BCW Global, who Frischmann has also referred the Washington Examiner to for information about the Microsoft review.
"I just checked in with the team and learned the review is still ongoing," Frischmann wrote in an email to the Washington Examiner on March 17. "I know you’re eager to learn more, so I’ll keep you posted when I have an update. Thank you for your continued patience."
Microsoft has reiterated a similar sentiment to the Washington Examiner ever since, including in early May, providing no updates on the investigation.
The lack of transparency about the review comes after the Global Engagement Center missed a May 11 deadline to provide House Foreign Affairs Committee Republicans with documents about the agency's efforts to fight "disinformation" and "misinformation." The committee, led by Chairman Michael McCaul (R-TX), also asked for records related to GDI.
Subpoenas in connection to the request are "not off the table," two senior congressional sources previously told the Washington Examiner. The State Department was notably sued in early May by a right-leaning watchdog group called Protect the Public's Trust over its failure to release records on GDI.
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The National Legal and Policy Center, another right-leaning watchdog, filed a formal IRS complaint in early May against GDI's two affiliated U.S. nonprofit groups, Disinformation Index and the AN Foundation, following the Washington Examiner revealing in April how the entities redacted large portions of their 2021 federal financial disclosure forms.
Microsoft did not return a request for comment.