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State Department Reportedly Funding Foreign Think Tank Tasked With Trying to Censor Americans for Political Beliefs

The US State Department reportedly finances and collaborates with an ultra-liberal UK-based research organization that works with online platforms to filter alleged misinformation and disinformation.

The Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) is a voluntary organization based in the United Kingdom that bills itself as a research organization that collaborates with many internet platforms to combat extremism, hatred, and disinformation.

However, the group regularly labels conventional conservative debate and journalism as hatred and/or misinformation, and it has received government support.

In September 2021, the State Department gave the group a grant to combat ‘disinformation and propaganda.’

“By funding organizations – including foreign organizations, no less – that put their thumbs on the scale of hot-button domestic political debates, the federal government is wading into a dangerous Constitutional minefield. The government cannot get around First Amendment restrictions by outsourcing or using surrogates or agents for prohibited activities.” Chamberlain, director of government watchdog ‘Protect the Public’s Trust’ noted in a statement to the Daily Caller.

Furthermore, the State Department and ISD collaborated to establish the Strong Cities Network, a United Nations-affiliated effort to battle alleged ‘hate, polarisation and extremism.’

Left-wing billionaire Pierre Omidyar’s Omidyar Group, George Soros’ Open Society Foundations, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation are also all listed as donors to the group.

ISD has many agreements with platforms to influence their content moderation choices, particularly those involving “hate and misinformation.”

Most troubling of all, ISD appears to consider normal conservative positions on issues like abortion and climate change as forms of hate speech.

The group also labeled the conservative Twitter account ‘Libs of Tik Tok’ as a “prolific spreader of hate,” and claimed that “misgendering” an individual as “anti-trans hatred”

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