USA: After learning that the George Soros-backed Global Disinformation Index (GDI) was attempting to rob conservative media outlets of their advertising revenue, the US State Department announced on Tuesday that it had stopped funding the organisation.

A UK-based nonprofit organisation called GDI states that its goal is to "disrupt the business of disinformation." It accomplishes this by compiling lists of "high-risk" news and information sources, many of which are anti-liberal and of the right-wing persuasion, and providing these to advertisers, who then decline to place advertisements on the sites.

The National Endowment for Democracy and the Global Engagement Center, both parts of the US State Department, gave GDI grants totaling more than $200,000 and about $100,000, respectively, according to a recent investigation by the Washington Examiner.

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Additional funding comes from the UK Foreign Office and billionaire financier Soros, both of whom are listed as donors on the organization's website.

More than 2,000 websites are included on GDI's "dynamic exclusion list," and the group's CEO, Clare Melford, asserts that the blacklisting has "had a significant impact on the advertising revenue of these sites."

Republican lawmakers were outraged to learn that conservative and libertarian websites were deemed among the "ten riskiest online news sources" when GDI examined American news websites for potential targeting. They demanded that the State Department withhold its funding.

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As it "cannot fund anything that focuses on the United States," the National Endowment for Democracy stated to the Washington Times on Tuesday that it "will no longer provide financial support to GDI."

The Global Engagement Center, according to a spokesperson, is responsible for "identifying foreign state and non-state disinformation narratives, trends, and techniques aimed at undermining... the policies, security, or stability of the United States."

Both of the State Department's auxiliary organisations continue to be powerful agents of American soft power. The National Endowment for Democracy recently funded a meeting of anti-China representatives and officials in Taiwan and supported anti-government media outlets during Iranian protests. While this was going on, the Global Engagement Center funded video games that were made available in the UK, Ukraine, Latvia, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia to educate kids about the perils of so-called "disinformation."

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The Global Engagement Center also exerted significant pressure on Twitter to censor accounts associated with "the Russian government" in the run-up to the US election in 2020, despite its inability to establish any ties.