Florida’s Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis has ordered the state’s Department of Financial Services to stop contracting with entities involved in news censorship and blacklisting activities, including media censorship agency NewsGuard.
“Florida rejects censorship! Today I banned @FLDFS from working with censorship and blacklisting groups like NewsGuard. These groups issue ‘credibility ratings’ to news sources to downplay information they don’t like. This is wrong!,” Patronis announced in an X-post on Wednesday.
Florida denies censorship! Today I banned translation: From working with censorship and blacklisting groups like NewsGuard, who issue “credibility ratings” to news sources in order to undermine information they don’t like. This is wrong.
Read more ➡️: https://t.co/i2x7RPaZMM pic.twitter.com/OGKPqFmIqa
— Jimmy Patronis (@JimmyPatronis) July 31, 2024
In his post, Patronis shared a statement that read, “We recognize that First Amendment rights, like freedom of speech and freedom of the press, are fundamental American rights and vital to our democracy and must be protected from unjust infringement.”
“Organizations such as NewsGuard Technologies, Global Disinformation Index, Grafika Technologies, and others like them assign subjective ‘trust ratings’ or labels of ‘misinformation’ to news sources,” the declaration states.
“Blacklisting of news sources refers to the placing of news sources on lists or the creation of rating systems or scores to indicate that a news source is deemed unreliable or untrustworthy, and such censorship and blacklisting activities also take place under the explicit function of ‘fact-checking,'” Patronis explained.
The declaration goes on to say that “as a result of censorship and blacklisting activities by NewsGuard and other similar organizations, targeted news sources may suffer reduced advertising revenues, often intentionally.”
Florida’s chief financial officer called these practices “deeply undemocratic,” adding that they “lead to the ‘debanking’ and ‘deplatforming’ of legitimate private entities.”
Patronis also pointed to the Department of Defense’s $750,000 contract with NewsGuard and the subsequent “deterioration in the credibility ratings of news sources that have reported accurately about the Biden Administration,” a clear indication that the government is working with organizations that censor speech, in violation of the First Amendment.
As a result, “any division within the Florida Department of Financial Services that utilizes promotional agreements or marketing or public education campaigns may not enter into or renew any contract or understanding with any entity for the purpose of developing, providing, or using news source censorship or blacklisting services,” the declaration states.
Additionally, all of these divisions of the state’s Department of Financial Services “may not use, or permit their contractors to use, censorship or blacklisting services in connection with ad buys or marketing placements,” the statement added.
As Breitbart News reported, four major international advertising agencies, including members of the Global Alliance for Responsible Media, which has been accused of censoring online speech and trying to silence media outlets, including Breitbart News, have been awarded billions of dollars in contracts from the federal government.
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