The Biden administration paid a left-wing rating group to starve conservative media of advertising dollars.
That group just got hit from a direction nobody in the censorship business saw coming.
And what Ron DeSantis signed last week is only the beginning of it.
How the NewsGuard Media Blacklist Handed Chinese State Propaganda a Better Score Than Newsmax
For years, three left-wing media monitors – NewsGuard, Ad Fontes Media, and the Global Disinformation Index – quietly ran the scoreboard that decided which news outlets got advertising money and which ones got starved.
NewsGuard had a formula.
HuffPost got an 87.5 credibility rating.
Fox News got a 69.5.
Newsmax received a 20.
Chinese state-run outlet China Daily got a 44.5 – more than twice the score NewsGuard assigned to Newsmax.
The Global Disinformation Index ran the same operation.
GDI labeled The Daily Wire, The New York Post, and The Federalist among the ten "riskiest" outlets for disinformation while HuffPost and ProPublica made its list of the ten "least risky."
Ben Shapiro called it what it was: a scheme that "fed basically a blacklist of sites to advertisers" and deprived conservative outlets of "legitimately millions of dollars in advertising."
The Biden State Department funded GDI with $100,000 in U.S. taxpayer dollars and used its Global Engagement Center to push the same agenda – until Congress finally defunded it in 2024.
The Florida Free Speech Law That Cuts Taxpayer Dollars Off From the Censorship Cartel
Governor Ron DeSantis signed Florida's $117.6 billion budget on June 29, including a provision that bars state agencies from contracting with any advertising firm that uses NewsGuard, Ad Fontes Media, or GDI when placing taxpayer-funded advertising.
Florida included the same restriction the year before.
The Independent Media Council, a coalition of conservative and independent media organizations, called Florida's action a model for the country.
"Gov. DeSantis has once again demonstrated Florida's leadership in defending free speech and viewpoint diversity," said IMC spokesperson Christine Czernejewski.
"By signing this provision for a second year, Florida is sending a clear message that taxpayer-funded advertising should be focused on reaching the broadest possible audience, not filtered through politically motivated media blacklist systems," she added.
Florida is not the only front.
On April 15, FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson sued WPP, Publicis, and Dentsu – three advertising giants that collectively manage ad buys for much of the Fortune 500 – for conspiring to impose shared "brand safety" standards designed to cut conservative publishers off from revenue.
Ferguson has called NewsGuard the engine of "collusive ad-boycotts" that operated "possibly in violation of our antitrust laws" to "censor the speech of conservative and independent media in the United States."
FTC and State Legislatures Join DeSantis to Fight Conservative Media Censorship
The Daily Wire and The Federalist sued the State Department in 2023 over its funding of GDI.
They won.
On April 1, 2026, a federal judge signed a consent decree ending the case – locking in a permanent prohibition on State Department funding of censorship operations and putting The Daily Wire and The Federalist in charge of enforcing compliance until 2036.
"The U.S. government has acknowledged its censorship structures under the Biden administration," said Daily Wire CEO Caleb Robinson.
West Virginia's Senate voted 30-2 to pass its First Amendment Preservation Act, blocking all state agencies from sending advertising dollars through firms that rely on media-monitoring organizations.
That law took effect July 1, 2026.
Congress embedded similar restrictions in the last two National Defense Authorization Acts, cutting Pentagon advertising dollars off from firms that use left-wing monitoring systems.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio imposed visa sanctions on GDI founder Clare Melford in December 2025, calling her group responsible for "organized efforts to coerce American platforms to censor, demonetize, and suppress American viewpoints they oppose."
Legal scholar Jonathan Turley has described NewsGuard's operation as "a massive censorship system."
The Left built a machine that quietly redirected hundreds of millions in advertising dollars away from the outlets that told Americans the truth.
DeSantis said no – for the second year in a row – and the federal government, West Virginia, and two consecutive NDAAs said it right alongside him.
The only question now is which state signs next.
Sources:
- Newsmax Wires, "DeSantis Signs Anti-Censorship Law for Second Straight Year," Newsmax, July 2, 2026.
- Staff, "Conservative Nonprofit Praises Florida Legislature for Standing Against 'Media Blacklists,'" Just the News, June 2026.
- Staff, "Florida Lawmakers Pass Law Targeting Media Blacklists," The Daily Signal, June 4, 2026.
- Susan Ferrechio, "News Rating Agencies Under Federal Scrutiny for Colluding to Shut Down Conservative Outlets," The Washington Times, June 6, 2025.
- Staff, "FTC Takes Action to Restore Competition in the Digital Advertising Ecosystem," Federal Trade Commission, April 16, 2026.
- Staff, "Daily Wire Wins Landmark Free Speech Victory in Censorship Lawsuit Against State Department," The Daily Wire, April 1, 2026.
- Staff, "State Fires a Shot Against 'Blacklisting' Conservative Media," The Daily Signal, April 22, 2026.
