Disinformation Inc: University got millions from taxpayers while teaming with conservative blacklist group to silence COVID 'disinfo'

A publicly funded research lab at the University of Washington, which is heavily backed by taxpayer dollars, partnered with a "disinformation" tracking group that is blacklisting conservative news to fight alleged COVID-19 "disinformation" online.

The State Department-backed Global Disinformation Index demanded groups cut ties with media outlets that boosted the coronavirus "lab leak" theory in 2020, which the Energy Department now says is the most likely origin of the virus. That same British group, which has come under fire for alleged censorship, teamed up in 2020 with the University of Washington for a COVID-19 "disinformation" research project that sought to "classify news articles according to their risk of containing disinformation about the coronavirus in real time," according to records reviewed by the Washington Examiner.

"Based on GDI's track record, it's certainly alarming that a public institution would work with this shady organization to censor what information the public has access to about COVID," Justin Goodman, vice president of advocacy and public policy at the White Coat Waste Project, a federal spending watchdog, told the Washington Examiner. "GDI's work to dismiss and discredit the lab leak hypothesis has set back COVID origin investigations by three years and may contribute to us never determining how the pandemic started."