Staff with the Global Engagement Center (“GEC”) told a State Department official that its testbed platform “will NOT focus on US audiences,” but then proceeded to fund a trial targeting The Blaze — a Texas-based media outlet. The Federalist uncovered this detail during discovery in its lawsuit against the State Department and the GEC, which the plaintiffs settled last week after the Defendants agreed to detailed prophylactic measures to prevent similar violations of Americans’ First Amendment rights.
The Federalist, along with The Daily Wire, sued the State Department and GEC in December of 2023, after learning that the defendants had funded the testing, development, and promotion of censorship technologies that demonetized, denigrated, and limited the reach of the media plaintiffs’ speech. The complaint alleged both a First Amendment claim and a claim that the defendants exceeded their statutory authority, which was limited to managing foreign affairs.
Discovery evidence confirmed those allegations and revealed that in the waning days of the first Trump Administration, the State Department’s GEC funded a test of three so-called “Countering Propaganda and Disinformation” technology groups, PeakMetrics, NewsGuard, and Omelas. According to a PeakMetrics’ report produced by the State Department, the three companies “collaborated to create a mockup of a joint dashboard incorporating all three companies’ capabilities.” The test ran from December 14, 2020 – January 7, 2021, with PeakMetrics stating it “performed a preliminary analysis on Omelas’ ‘Unrest and Violence in America’ narrative, which has risen exponentially this week, as expected.” PeakMetrics added that it then integrated its “technology enrichment for sources,” noting that an “[a]nalysis of this metadata can provide unique insights into networks of disinformation propagators.”
But who were these supposed “disinformation propagators?”
PeakMetrics’ report offered two examples: Sputnik News and The Blaze.
The Blaze is a Texas-based media outlet, making GEC’s targeting of that domestic media outlet well beyond its mandate to manage foreign affairs — a limitation GEC clearly understood — not to mention an abridgement of The Blaze’s First Amendment rights.
Additional documents reveal that the Defendants’ knew full well that targeting domestic speech was a no-no.
Prior to the test, the GEC had explained that the test would involve PeakMetrics “first identify[ing] popular yet potentially divisive narratives relevant to the U.S. elections that are trending across channels,” with Omelas then “provid[ing] evidence of direct attribution of these narratives to state-sponsored sources of disinformation.” PeakMetrics and Omelas would then assess what narratives were becoming “integrated into domestic messaging.” Finally, NewsGuard would highlight which sites the narratives continue to surface from and “provide information on the reliability, popularity, and endurance of the sites and dissemination platforms.”
That summary of the test raised red flags for at least one person in the State Department, prompting in response a September 2020 email apologizing for the lack of clarity in discussing the proposed testing. We had “explained to CYBERCOM” that it would be “impossible” to “focus on domestic audiences,” the email explained, but that point “obviously didn’t come across clearly.” “To clarify,” the note continued, “this test will NOT focus on US audiences.” “Because we will not focus on US audiences,” the email added, we did not seek legal input.”
In response, the State Department official cleared the test, based on that clarification, while adding: “How do you determine if the narratives become integrated into domestic messaging … without analyzing domestic messaging?”
You can’t, is the simple answer. But because the email chain lacked any response to that query, one is left to wonder what the GEC told the State Department — something we never learned in discovery.
But whatever the explanation given, it couldn’t possibly square with reality because PeakMetrics’ report revealed it had tested two media outlets, one of which was the Texas-based The Blaze.
Indeed, the State Department not only funded the testing of the PeakMetrics, Omelas, and NewsGuard technology, it also financed the testbed on which the three private companies collaborated through its $2-million-plus grant to Park Advisors. And as a result of that federally funded collaboration, as PeakMetrics noted in its report, it continued “to work with Omelas and NewsGuard to create a plan to integrate the three capabilities into a single operational dashboard,” and “to better operationalize the dashboard based on feedback” from the testing.
In other words, our government financed testing for private technology companies to improve their products — products that target American’s speech and seek to silence domestic media outlets.
Beyond PeakMetrics which targeted The Blaze in its small-scale test, NewsGuard ranks hundreds of domestic media outlets and, in the case of The Federalist and the Daily Wire, brands them as “unreliable,” causing both entities to lose advertising dollars and further limit the reach of their reporting.
Again, at least one State Department representative saw the problem caused by this funding, writing in May 2021 email that the testbed could be perceived as “money being used to benefit private vendors’ R&D.” Another low-level representative rejected the concerns, responding: “That’s a low risk — I don’t believe that to be an issue.”
But it is an issue — a huge issue especially when it is State Department money funding private research and development designed to censor Americans’ speech. And that is why in settling its lawsuit with the State Department, The Federalist and The Daily Wire insisted that the consent decree expressly prohibit the State Department from funding or assisting in the testing or development of so-called CPD’s tool and technologies that suppress, censor, demonetize, or downgrade the constitutionally protected speech of Americans or domestic media outlets.
Likewise, the plaintiffs, who were represented by the public interest law firm, the New Civil Liberties Alliance, required the defendants to agree in the consent decree that any future awards or grants would include provisions expressly prohibiting the recipient from using the funds to target Americans’ speech or domestic media outlets, and prohibiting grant recipients from commercializing any such tools funded by State Department grants.
While The Federalist’s victory against the State Department does not compensate it for the harm caused by the bad actors behind the censorship scheme, the evidence uncovered during litigation should shake Americans awake to the threat to their liberties posed by a government claiming to fight disinformation. And the consent decree provides assurances that any roots of censorship that remain will be destroyed.
In addition to serving as The Federalist’s Senior Legal Correspondent, Margot Cleveland is Of Counsel at the New Civil Liberties Alliance and served as lead counsel in The Daily Wire/The Federalist v. State Department.
