SUMMARY
- The EU’s Digital Services Act aims to impose massive fines on American tech companies that fail to comply with its draconian requirements to curb disfavored speech.
- Once the EU’s “voluntary” Code of Practice on Disinformation becomes mandatory, tech companies will be obligated under EU law to censor “disinformation” and “misinformation.”
- The Foundation for Freedom Online has identified ten US-government funded organizations that signed the EU’s Code of Practice — roughly 20 percent of the signatories.
- A further 13 organizations – a mix of news agencies, nonprofits, analytics companies, and universities – are involved in enforcing the EU’s speech rules through its network of “digital observatories” that monitor online platforms for disfavored information and narratives. One organization, NewsGuard, is both a signatory and an enforcer.
- In total, 23 US-funded organizations are involved in the EU’s censorship regime, either supporting it through their signatures, or directly participating in it through the “digital observatory” system.
- The 23 organizations have collectively received $15,444,695 in government grants and awards.
The American taxpayer is bankrolling online censorship in Europe. Multiple organizations involved in enforcing the EU’s draconian Digital Services Act (DSA), which imposes massive fines on American tech platforms found guilty of carrying “misinformation” or “hate speech,” are American entities backed by American government funding.
Supporters of these efforts, many of whom are deeply tied to the legacy US foreign policy establishment, admit that the goal of these efforts is to shut down free speech for Americans. The pressure is about to mount, as the previously-voluntary EU code of practice on disinformation becomes a mandatory regulation governing tech companies operating in the region.
The Foundation for Freedom Online has analyzed organizations that signed the EU’s code of practice, or are involved in enforcing it, finding eight organizations that receive funding from US government sources.
Additionally, two of the organizations on the list, NewsGuard and Bellingcat, are drectly involved in enforcing the EU’s censorship regime, as active participants in Europe’s network of EU-backed “digital observatories” aimed at detecting disfavored online narratives that can be analysed and targeted for censorship.
The List – Signatories
In total, 42 organizations signed the EU’s code of practice on disinformation while it was still voluntary. Of those 42, the following are funded by US government sources:
NewsGuard
The infamous private blacklisting service received $750,000 from the Department of Defense in 2021. Its close connections to the old foreign policy blob don’t end there — until December of last year, its public list of advisors (now scrubbed from the website) included former NSA and CIA director Michael Hayden, former NATO head Anders Fogh Rasmussen, former DHS secretary Tom Ridge, and former State Department undersecretary Richard Stengel.
The Global Disinformation Index
A British organization that built a “dynamic exclusion” list similar to NewsGuard’s blacklists, intended for use in the advertising industry as a guide to financially ruin non-establishment news sources. GDI received $100,000 from the State Department via the now-shuttered Global Engagement Center, and $230,000 from the State Department funded National Endowment for Democracy (NED).
GLOBSEC
An NGO that brings together leading establishment figures in an annual conference on European policy and security, its past speakers have included the late Sen. John McCain, former UK Prime Minister and Brexit opponent David Cameron, former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, and founding DHS head Michael Chertoff. Its funding includes $418,226 across nine grants from the U.S. Department of State, and it has also partnered with NED (p.27) and the the US government-funded Atlantic Council.
CEE Digital Democracy Watch
Registered in Poland in 2024, this “election integrity” watchdog is part of the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (International IDEA)’s Global Democracy Coalition. International IDEA is a highly influential Swedish nonprofit with global influence, with the stated goal of spreading “sustainable democracy” worldwide. International IDEA has received $900,000 in funding from USAID.
Debunk EU
A counter-disinformation NGO based in Lithuania, Debunk EU has received $224,744 across five separate grants from the State Department. Some of this is apparently used to monitor American speech. Debunk’s website states “Debunk.org carries out disinformation analyses in the Baltic countries, Poland, Georgia and Montenegro, as well as in the United States and North Macedonia.”
Demagog
A Polish “disinformation watchdog” also active in Slovakia and Czechia, Demagog received a $10,000 grant from the State Department.
Baltica (The Baltic Center for Investigative Journalism)
Baltica received a $25,311.00 grant from the State Department in 2021.
Reporters Without Borders (RSF)
RSF is funded by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). Since NED has concealed its activities from public disclosure requirements, it is unclear exactly how much RSF has received.
Maldita
A Spanish journalism and “counter-disinformation” nonprofit whose funding includes NED, as well as Poynter’s IFCN network, which was set up with funding from NED. Maldita is also funded by Internews, a global grantmaking behemoth that astroturfs media and journalism around the world — primarily bankrolled by USAID. Internews has received $415.33million from USAID over the past two decades, spread across 134 different grants and contracts. This accounts for the vast majority of its budget.
Logically AI
A British multinational company set up specifically for “disinformation detection” at scale, Logically AI received a $99,900 contract from the U.S. Department of State in September 2024, which is not set to expire until September 2025.
The List – Enforcers
In addition to signatories of the code of practice, the U.S. government also bankrolls the regulation and censorship of its own tech companies by funding a number of organizations involved in enforcing the EU’s online censorship regime. The following organizations are all participants in the EU’s network of digital media observatories:
NewsGuard
See above.
Bellingcat
Widely praised by the US intelligence community, Bellingcat is a journalism and “open source intelligence” outfit that aims to provide actionable intelligence in a public way. The organization has received over $115,000 in funding from NED.
The University of Taru, Estonia
Received a $400,000 award from the US Department of State for an “advanced study program in combating disinformation to improve democratic resilience.”
Vytautas Magnus University, Lithuania
Received $10,250 from the U.S. Department of State to host a “global media and information literacy week.”
Funky Citizens, Romania
A Romanian “anti-disinformation” and “civic fitness” nonprofit that received $161,822 across five separate grants from the State Department, including to “strengthen the communication strategies of Romanian NGOs ahead of the 2024 election.” The results of that election were nullified by Romanian courts – apparently with EU support, as boasted by former EU commissioner Thierry Breton. The pretext for the nullification, which prevented the accession of a right-wing populist government, was an alleged Russian social media campaign.
Fundatia Centrul / Centrul Pentru Jurnalism Independent, Moldova
This journalism NGO in Moldova received $918,709 from the State Department across seven grants, more than $500,000 of which was concentrated in two grants in 2022 and 2023. These include grants to fund local journalists and “social media monitoring.”
Seesame PR, Slovakia
This Slovakia-based PR firm was paid $149,924 by the State Department across two grants, including $125,000 for a PR campaign to “strengthen trust in freedom and democracy” in 2019.
Vrije University, Belgium
Vrije has received over $1.5 million in grants and awards from the U.S. government, including the US Department of Defense, the US Department of State, and the Environmental Protection Agency. While most of this funding is for projects unrelated to censorship, one $50,000 grant from the State Department was for “empowering youth” in Belgium, Finland, and Turkey to “counter disinformation.”
Cyprus University of Technology
The Cyprus University of Technology has received $316,765 from the State Department, including a number of grants for “misinformation” and “media literacy” research.
EU DisinfoLab, Belgium
Purpose-built for combating “disinformation,” this NGO received $15,000 from the State Department to implement its project in Latvia.
Verificat, Spain
A “fact checker” aimed at combating disinformation in Spain’s Catalonia region, Verificat received $11,000 from the State Department to host a workshop on disinformation.
NewsWhip
A social media analytics company, NewsWhip received part of a $317,268 award (that could pay up to $866,919 by its end date in 2028) from the State Department for a variety of electronic services.
Austria Presse Agentur (APA)
The national news agency of Austria, APA has received $305,874 in subscription revenues from the State Department since 2016.
Agence France Presse (AFP)
Based in France, AFP is the world’s oldest news agency, with over $300 million in annual revenues and the 27th-most visited news site in the world. AFP received $9,914,902 from the U.S. government, mainly in the form of subscriptions. The bulk of this ($9.14m) came from the U.S. Agency for Global Media. It also received $351,592 from the Department of Defense, $150,808 from the Department of State, and $279,255 from USAID. Of all the organizations involved in the EDMO disinformation-monitoring hubs, AFP has the most involvement, acting as an observer in eight of the fourteen “digital media observatories.”
The Transatlantic Flank Attack
A key focus of the censorship industry in recent years has been supporting international measures like the EU Digital Services Act (DSA), that aim to punish American tech platforms for not complying with online censorship demands. With censorship on the back foot in the U.S., this transatlantic flank attack aims to create censorship pressure at the international level instead.
Foreign legal predicates may cause platforms to remove speech from Americans on those platforms to avoid financial throttling and platform bans at the hands of foreign governments. In Brazil, Elon Musk’s noncompliance with censorship demands for example, led to them banning the platform.
A censorship roadmap published by the previous White House in 2022 explains the importance of international efforts. One of the desired outcomes of European legislation, according to the roadmap, is to provide U.S. “disinformation researchers” — the engine of the censorship industry — with access to data from social media platforms:
“5.2.3.4 Engagements with International Partners. Expand on existing efforts, exchange lessons learned, and further establish joint research and pilot programs with researchers and entities outside the United States. Expand partnerships that enable development of information integrity tools for low-resource languages and assessment of manipulated-information campaigns in parts of the world where research has traditionally been sparse. Assess establishing a partnership with the European Union (EU) to provide U.S. researchers with access to social media data accessible under the 2022 EU Code of Practice on Disinformation.”
As the Foundation for Freedom Online highlighted in its 2024 Censorship Index, the U.S. government also pushed censorship in Europe through the State Department’s office of public diplomacy:
- Gave the Atlantic Council a $300,000 grant to build a “transatlantic response to disinformation.”
- This grant was seemingly used to fund a conference involving conversations about cooperating on the EU Digital Services Ac (DSA)t. A grant transaction description mentions a June 2022 conference.
- The Delegation of the EU to the United States and the Atlantic Council hosted a June 2022 EU-US Defense and Future Forum. During the conference, members of an audience, which included officials from the U.S. State Department, asked questions to and attended a talk by Gerard De Graaf on the EU-US Digital Policy Agenda, largely centered around the DSA.
- Gerard De Graff was the Director of Digital Transformation at the European Commission. He is responsible largely for the creation of the DSA. De Graff was named Special Envoy for Digital to the US and head of the newly created EU San Francisco Office in September 2022, seemingly fitted near Silicon Valley to push American tech platforms into compliance with Orwellian European regulations.
American censors have viewed the DSA as a lifeline for continuing the ability to suppress speech on platforms, especially in the case of Twitter (now X) under Elon Musk’s anti-censorship leadership.
The previously mentioned censorship industry insider whose consulting firm is mentioned in the White House roadmap, Kate Harbath, is additionally a fellow at the Integrity Institute, another contributing organization listed in the White House roadmap.
The Integrity Institute’s involvement is interesting given that they are formal partners with the EU in their legal efforts to promote internet censorship.
The Institute was selected as subcontractor to the European Commission in December 2022, to consult in the EU-led efforts to develop “counter-disinformation” practices, specifically providing advice to strengthen the 2022 Code of Practice on Disinformation.
Kate Harbath gave testimony to the UK parliament in April 2024 to talk about the state of the censorship industry and solutions. In her appearance before parliament, she made the case that mechanisms for coordination of data sharing to American censors could be funneled through European censorship laws.
At this point, the American censorship industry had largely been caught red-handed in their censorship work that reached a height in 2020-2021 (hence her below mention of “a chilling effect” on their field of work)..
In addition, as my fellow witnesses mentioned, particularly here in the United States, the researchers and those who study this environment have been attacked politically. They have been brought in front of congressional hearings; they have been buried under freedom of information requests. This has had a chilling effect on the work to even understand what is happening. On top of that, the platforms have pulled back some of the access to data in order to understand what is happening on those platforms. Legislation such as the Online Safety Act and the Digital Services Act in the EU will potentially change that, but that remains a challenge for many of these folks.”
Harbath’s testimony came as platforms under increasing public pressure, scaled back efforts that previously allowed censors access to data and direct lines of communications with their trust and safety departments. Harbath’s above mention specifically mentioned the DSA as the international policy loophole that would allow herself and others to regain the ability to once again ramp up their surveillance of online speech.
