This Shadowy Group Ran The Government's Censorship Scheme

 As The Federalist previously reported, GEC funded the development of censorship tools and used "Government employees to act as sales reps pitching the censorship products to Big Tech." Further investigation into its operations now reveals the government's GEC used one or more for-profit businesses to lead four separate censorship initiatives with contractors at times engaging in "Inherently governmental functions."

The GEC webpage says the audience for these virtual demos "Is composed of U.S. government counterparts and foreign partners," leaving unclear whether the Tech Demo Series marketed censorship technology to outsiders and, if so, how.

While Disinfo Cloud's role in the Tech Demo Series is unclear, GEC's "Testbed" operated from Disinfo Cloud, and Park Advisors also managed that government initiative.

While GEC's current descriptor of "Testbed" says the State Department organization "Solicits real challenges of the U.S. government to counter foreign propaganda and disinformation," when Park Advisors ran Disinfo Cloud and Testbed, the GEC webpage explained that the two initiatives were used by "Academia, private sector, and tech vendors," and directed users to ask Disinfo Cloud for assistance in drafting "a test proposal for a tool."

While a State Department spokesman said GEC had awarded Park Advisors approximately $300,000 in 2018 to manage Disinfo Cloud, a search of government contracts and grants fails to show either Park Advisors or the related entity Park Capital Investment Group receiving any such award.

Adding further mystery to the funding of Park Advisors - aka Park Capital Investment Group - is the inspector general's audit of GEC, which included a review of a nearly $3 million award to Park Capital Investment Group.

While the lack of transparency related to the millions of federal grants awarded by GEC proves troubling, the larger concern is what GEC paid Park Advisors and presumably other contractors to do: fund and coordinate the censorship of Americans' speech and the blacklisting of our supposedly free press.

https://thefederalist.com/2023/04/19/meet-the-shadowy-group-that-ran-the-federal-governments-censorship-scheme/