UT Students Censor Conservative News Outlets

It’s no secret that conservative news outlets have been facing censorship and blacklisting in recent years. But what’s shocking is that a publicly funded organization, the Global Disinformation Index (GDI), was found to be involved in this censorship project. And even more concerning is that the project was carried out by students at the University of Texas at Austin, under the direction of academics working at the university’s Global Disinformation Lab (GDIL).

The GDI’s report, which called for the blacklisting of conservative news organizations, was written up by students under the direction of academics working at the University of Texas at Austin’s Global Disinformation Lab (GDIL).

The GDI labeled several conservative media companies as the riskiest, and the academics in charge of the lab allegedly held an anti-conservative bias in readings of internal communications. These accusations were found in the over 1,000 pages of documents reviewed by The Federalist.

Disinformation Inc.

The Washington Examiner investigative reporter, Gabe Kaminsky, published a Feb. 9 exclusive multi-part series: “Disinformation Inc.” Kaminsky revealed that “self-styled ‘disinformation’ tracking organizations,” such as the GDI’s review of the top ten “riskiest American news organizations,” were heavily biased against conservative outlets.

• American Spectator
• Newsmax
• The Federalist
• American Conservative
• One America News
• The Blaze
• Daily Wire
• RealClearPolitics
• Reason
• New York Post

These conservative news outlets generally had the lowest ratings, while left-leaning news publications like The New York Times and CNN were among the top 10 “least risky” in their rating system.

GDI sold its lists to marketing organizations, which led to companies pulling advertisements from blacklisted outlets and thus starving them of funding. For example, Microsoft’s Xandr used GDI’s blacklist to limit advertising dollars, but has since reportedly dropped its use of the blacklist after the series was published, reported the Washington Examiner.

University of Texas Caught in Media Censorship Controversy

Meanwhile, GDI released a report with help from researchers at the University of Texas at Austin on Dec. 16, 2022, called “Disinformation Risk Assessment: The Online News Market in the United States.” After the report admitting the targeting conservative outlets was published, The Federalist filed a public records request at UT Austin in February, demanding all communications related to GDIL’s work with the GDI on the news media review.

The files showed that the GDI paid the university to have student researchers, with little training, apply the organization’s screening methodology to rate the various media outlets for its final report, which gave conservative news outlets low ratings.

Despite actions by UT Austin to withhold some of the details of its methodology and research over concerns regarding “confidentiality of trade secrets” and “certain commercial or financial information,” the internal documents that were released revealed many concerning details.

The files showed that the GDI paid the university to have student researchers, with little training, apply the organization’s screening methodology to rate the various media outlets for its final report, which gave conservative news outlets low ratings. GDI sold the university project to GDIL with the goal of influencing the 2022 midterms, The Federalist reported.

Student researchers were recruited by being informed that their work would be “immediately valuable” since GDI would release it early “to make waves ahead of the midterm.”

This media censorship controversy is a clear violation of free speech and academic integrity. It’s important to hold publicly funded organizations and academic institutions accountable for their actions and biases.