PETITION: Break up Big Tech tyrants and defend free speech! Sign the petition here.
September 23, 2020 (NewsBusters) — It looks like the harbingers Dr. Robert Epstein had warned the country about regarding liberal Big Tech’s influence in elections is coming true.
Big Tech giant Facebook informed the Media Research Center that it would be partnering with the nonpartisan digital encyclopedia Ballotpedia and the radical left-wing organization Democracy Works to help formulate the online platform’s 2020 election strategy. What makes this partnership so damning is that Democracy Works in particular has been heavily funded with millions collectively by at least six liberal organizations between 2012 and 2019.
Also concerning is that Big Tech giant Google is also working with “Democracy Works to make sure it's surfacing only true information — and not, Google engineering VP Cathy Edwards said, things like false claims of victory,” according to Protocol. [Emphasis added.]
Democracy Works proclaims itself to be “nonpartisan,” but its donors, biased staff and its heavily partisan board of directors shows that it is anything but nonpartisan.
Democracy Works listed four of the six liberal organization “funders” that have dumped funds into its coffers over the years. The list included the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, liberal billionaire Pierre Omidyar’s Democracy Fund, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and the historically anti-Israel Rockefeller Brothers Fund. Omitted from Democracy Works’s list of funders was Omidyar’s Omidyar Network Fund and the liberal Tides Foundation.
In total, these six liberal organizations alone have given at least $10,628,999 collectively to Democracy Works between 2012-2019.
(Source: Foundation Center)
Just a glance at the Democracy Works blog reveals its leftist political stance. Democracy Works Co-founder and Executive Director Seth Flaxman published a blog June 4 headlined, “Our Democracy Fails If We Don’t Protect Black Lives.” In the article, he decried America as being built on slavery:
For over 400 years, America has systematically and violently oppressed Black life. Historically, Black communities have been forced to fight for rights afforded to white citizens in a country built on Black enslavement, [emphasis added].
He also suggested that racism is embedded into American society:
If we attempt to improve our democracy without reckoning with the racism embedded in our way of life, we will only perpetuate the harms Black voices have enumerated for centuries, [emphasis added].
Flaxman then attacked America again, as he wrote on the subject of diversity of his organization. “Incorporating the full humanity of our Black teammates means supporting the need to process the trauma of living in a country that dehumanizes Black life on an on-going basis.” [Emphasis added.]
What makes this worse is that Facebook included notice of its collaboration with Democracy Works on its corporate website under a section headlined: “We help prevent the spread of misinformation and provide additional context so people can make informed decisions.” However, strangely, Facebook has since dubiously removed its info about working with Democracy Works from that corporate web page.
Flaxman stated that “Black Americans have been given every reason, and therefore deserve every right, to express their grief and voice their grievances the best way they see fit.”
Two top officials who are leading the Democracy Works Election Research Team with Facebook are also overtly biased.
Election Research Director Kendall Schreur.
Schreur’s LinkedIn profile shows that she interned at the digital, communications and creative agency BerlinRosen between September 2015-December 2015. A quick glance at the agency’s issue advocacy page reveals a trove of left-wing propaganda. The page’s featured photo showed an abortion rights protest occurring in front of the Supreme Court.
The page stated: “Our clients are fighting to advance equity, fairness, and justice across today’s most urgent issues—gender equity, sexual and reproductive rights, systemic racism, immigration, criminal and civil justice reform. And we’re with them every step of the way.” [Emphasis added.]
One of its clients, is the radical left-wing, pro-boycott organization Color of Change and the pro-abortion group Physicians for Reproductive Health.
Schreur has also donated a number of small-dollar donations to former Democratic presidential candidate and ultra-liberal Sen. Elizabeth Warren, (D-MA), according to FEC data.
Odd that a Warren donor who interned for a radical leftist organization will be spearheading Democracy Works’s election research in conjunction with Facebook.
Election Research Lead Aubree Carpenter
Federal Election Commission records show that Carpenter, like Schreur, gave a number of small-dollar donations to Warren, including one donation to the Ditch Fund, which is actively working to unseat Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY).
Democracy Works Board of Directors
The Democracy Works Board of Directors is just as badly skewed Democrat and liberal. In fact, only one of 12 board members, Mike DuHaime, has a solid record of donating exclusively to Republicans.
Board Member Katie Harbath.
- Harbath is the “Public Policy Director for Global Elections at Facebook.” In attempt to make the board appear more bipartisan, Harbath’s about-page says she was the “Chief Digital Strategist at the National Republican Senatorial Committee.”
- However, according to Harbath’s donation records taken from the FEC for this cycle, she’s only donated to Democratic presidential candidates this cycle.
- The candidates Harbath donated to included Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, former South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg (D) and Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA). She also contributed $249.90 to the left-wing Win the Era PAC, which is affiliated with Buttigieg.
Board Member Keesha Gaskins.
- Gaskins is the “director for the Democratic Practice–United States program” at the liberal Rockefeller Brothers Fund, which funds Democracy Works.
- According to her about-page, “Prior to joining the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, she was senior counsel” with the left-wing, heavily Soros-funded “Brennan Center for Justice, serving as the director of the Redistricting and Representation program.”
- FEC records show that Gaskins had contributed one small-dollar donation ($25) to failed Democratic presidential candidate Julian Castro. She’s donated to no Republicans this cycle.
Board Member Kate Krontiris.
- Krontiris’s about-page shows that she worked as a consultant for both the liberal Knight Foundation and the Omidyar Network, two liberal organizations who have funded Democracy Works.
- According to her profile, she also “served as a consulting user researcher for the U.S. Digital Service within the Executive Office of President Barack Obama.”
- In addition, “Over the past few years, Kate has been exploring a democracy moonshot: how we might get a representative 80% of eligible Americans voting by 2028” with support from the left-wing Democracy Fund. [Emphasis added.]
Board Member Chris Hughes.
- Hughes “was a co-founder of Facebook, a digital architect for President Obama’s campaign, and the publisher of the digital and print” leftist magazine The New Republic.
- His about-page also lists him as a “trustee” of the liberal Knight Foundation.
- Also, the page notes that Huges “works on a range of progressive causes from his home in New York City.” [Emphasis added.]
Board Member Adam Gross.
- Gross “was CEO of Heroku,” and has founded two companies (Personify and Cloud Connect) and was an early employee at two others — Salesforce and Dropbox.” OpenSecrets records show that Gross donated exclusively to Democratic candidates over the past few years.
Board Member and Democracy Works co-founder Kathryn Peters.
- Peters previously worked at the George Soros-affiliated National Democratic Institute (NDI).
- George Soros’s Open Society Foundations is listed as a “partner” by NDI.
- Investment banker Richard C. Blum, the husband of Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), is listed as one of three in NDI’s “Million Dollar Roundtable” and is an NDI board member.
Board Member Usha Pasi.
- Pasi’s professional career included work at the Cambridge Community Foundation. According to FEC records, Pasi had donated $200 to Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), this election cycle.
- She’s made no donations to Republicans.
Board Member Namita Khasat.
- Khasat is listed as “CFO, Executive Vice President of Finance & Administration and Corporate Treasurer” of the Soros-funded, liberal Aspen Institute.
Democracy Works Co-founder and Executive Director Seth Flaxman.
- Flaxman, who wrote the leftist screed against America, also sits on the board.
This means that at least nine of Democracy Works’s 12-member Board of Directors can be connected to Democratic candidates, left-wing causes or liberal organizations.
Dr. Epstein’s words bring a chilling perspective on what Facebook and Google may be up to this November:
Google and Facebook have millions of pieces of information about every American voter, and they will be targeting their manipulations at the individual level for every single voter in every swing state. No one in the world except Google and Facebook can do that.
Published with permission from NewsBusters.