Microsoft has removed negative flags for conservative media outlets that have blocked them from reaping key advertising dollars amid the corporation launching an internal review and suspending its subscription to a "disinformation" tracking group's blacklist used to "defund" disfavored speech, according to internal data obtained by the Washington Examiner.
The Microsoft-owned Xandr, a major advertising company, previously abided by a secret blacklist of conservative news compiled by the Global Disinformation Index, a British organization with two affiliated U.S. nonprofit groups. Now, as Microsoft appears to be taking steps to distance itself from GDI, the company has, for the time being, deleted flags such as "false/misleading" and "reprehensible/offensive" for right-leaning websites, data show.
"I just checked in Xandr's platform again and can confirm that all rejection flags have been removed from domains," a senior executive in the ad industry, who was granted anonymity to speak candidly, told the Washington Examiner.
Xandr had labeled 39 conservative domains as, overwhelmingly, "false/misleading," the Washington Examiner reported on Friday. Townhall, a website under a Christian publisher called Salem Media Group, was flagged as "reprehensible/offensive."
Some websites that were flagged prior as "false/misleading" were the Washington Examiner, the Daily Wire, RealClearPolitics, Drudge Report, Newsmax, Breitbart, the Blaze, the Washington Times, Judicial Watch, and MRC.TV, which is under the Media Research Center.
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