More great news out of Florida, and it lands close to our snarky little hearts. “State agencies in Florida are barred … from hiring advertising firms that use ‘misinformation’ ratings to decide which news outlets deserve ad dollars and which don’t.”
Outfits like NewsGuard, Ad Fontes Media, and the Global Disinformation Index built businesses around slapping scores on news organizations—supposedly measuring “reliability” or “brand safety.” Their scoring system functions as a censorship mechanism, giving advertising firms an excuse to spend money with left-leaning outlets while starving conservative and independent publishers of revenue.
NewsGuard sends me a list of troubling articles every year as part of their pretend evaluation of GraniteGrok.com, so they can tell advertisers not to spend money at GraniteGrok.com while giving the lying Handmaiden in Media scores in the 90s.
It is a form of institutional censorship intended to make it unaffordable to operate an alternative or independent media outlet. Florida, for the second year running, has done its small part to make a difference. If your advertising agency uses scores by outlets like NewsGuard for any advertising decision, the state won’t spend taxpayer dollars with you.
“By signing this provision for a second year, Florida is sending a clear message that taxpayer-funded advertising should be focused on reaching the broadest possible audience, not filtered through politically motivated media blacklist systems,” Christine Czernejewski, spokesperson for the Independent Media Council, said in a statement.
It is a blacklist, and the pushback is getting some attention.
Earlier this year, West Virginia passed its own First Amendment Preservation Act to guard against the same kind of government-enabled viewpoint discrimination. Congress has included similar language in the National Defense Authorization Act, cutting off the Pentagon’s ability to funnel huge sums of ad spending through firms that use these biased scoring systems.
Under the direction of Federal Trade Commission Chairman Andrew N. Ferguson, the FTC announced in April that it was taking action against the advertising industry’s practices, including how merger reviews and enforcement actions touch on viewpoint-based discrimination.
Viewpoint discrimination. Nashua Mayor Jim Donchess knows what that is. Elected Democrats engage in it as a matter of policy and tactic. They used your money to pay for thousands upon thousands of subscriptions to various news outlets for “public employees” as a way to launder money to them to help keep them afloat, while funding and applauding groups like NewsGuard, which put another thumb on the scale for their Dem party stenographers.
Given how much money, energy, and resources the left has hijacked or deployed over the years, it’s a miracle we’ve managed to push back at all.
It does explain their constant outrage. Despite the cheating, lying, and subterfuge, Republicans continue to find a way to flank them in their war to ruin America. The advertising ban is just another effort to balance the scales with your state and federal tax dollars.
New Hampshire should get in on this next session. Your state, too, if it’s not too blue. Or did Democrats want to admit that they need viewpoint discrimination to compete in the arena of ideas?
