Gov’t Agency Behind Mass Online Censorship Of Conservatives Gets New Lease On Life Thanks To GOP Leadership

Congress would extend authorization for an agency allegedly involved in censoring conservative speech under the text of its short-term spending bill released Tuesday.

The over 1,500 page continuing resolution extends authorization for the Global Engagement Center (GEC), which was slated to end this year, into 2025.

Through the GEC, the State Department facilitated funding for the Global Disinformation Index, which created a blacklist of conservative media outlets used by advertising companies to demonetize the websites.

Last week, State Department attorneys wrote in a court filing that termination of the GEC was “substantially likely” to occur on Dec. 23, citing a sunset provision in the GEC’s statutory authorization. The GEC’s authorization through the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2017 was set to expire after eight years.

The State Department notified Congress of its plan to terminate the GEC and “realign the Center’s staff and funding to other Department offices and bureaus for foreign information manipulation and interference activities,” attorneys wrote in the filing.

Last December, two conservative news outlets, along with the state of Texas, sued