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advertising company owned by Microsoft that subscribes to a left-leaning “disinformation” group’s secret blacklist for conservative media outlets has been internally flagging right-leaning websites and taking steps to defund and deplatform them, according to records obtained by the Washington Examiner and whistleblowers in the advertising industry.
The Global Disinformation Index, a British organization with two affiliated U.S. nonprofit groups, is feeding secret blacklists to ad companies, such as Xandr , with the intent of shutting down websites peddling alleged “disinformation.” Now, sets of documents and emails leaked to the Washington Examiner shed light on how Xandr, which Microsoft bought in 2021 for $1 billion, has targeted disfavored speech and blocked conservative websites from reaping key ad dollars.
“Xandr’s use of politically motivated flags on this blacklist stands outside of the norm in advertising,” said a senior executive at an ad company, noting that the real purpose of blacklisting should be to protect brands from advertising “on content that is illegal, fraudulent, [or] low-quality.”
“In this case, Xandr prevented us from talking to our voters in the critical days leading up to Election Day,” the executive, who was granted anonymity to discuss confidential company matters, told the Washington Examiner. “Our audience reads the Examiner, Daily Wire, Townhall, etc. Voters go to these news & opinion sites [to] inform their decisions. And if Microsoft is using their technology to block us from showing ads on these websites, they’re actively preventing us from talking to voters on the public squares where their decisions are being informed.”
