A State Department-backed "disinformation" tracking group blacklisting conservative news outlets pressured advertising companies to punish websites boosting the COVID-19 "lab leak" theory

The Global Disinformation Index has published several reports on alleged COVID-19 disinformation. The group notably received $665,000 combined between 2020 and 2021 from the State Department-backed Global Engagement Center and National Endowment for Democracy.

GDI alleged in a February 2020 report dubbed "Coronavirus: The makings of a disinformation pandemic?" that "adversarial narratives" are emerging as a key "disinformation tactic." The report called out Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) for raising the possibility on Fox News that COVID-19 came from a lab.

"By broadcasting the Senator’s words to a national audience, this debunked conspiracy theory is given authority, validation and amplification," said GDI in the report.

One month later, in March 2020, GDI released a report titled, "Why is Ad Tech Funding These Ads on Coronavirus Conspiracy Sites?"

The report, which slammed Google and other companies for "providing ad revenue streams to known disinformation sites peddling coronavirus conspiracies," called out the conservative blog American Thinker for publishing a commentary article titled "The Wuhan Virus Escaped From a Chinese Lab."