Applewhite
© Scott Applewhite/APJohn Arnold, head of the hedge fund Centauarus Advisors of Houston • August 5, 2009
A Texas billionaire whose donations to organizations across the United States have stayed relatively obscure has given millions of dollars to groups tied to efforts fighting the spread of purported "disinformation" and "misinformation," records show.

Through his LLC, Arnold Ventures, John Arnold has handed over $13.7 million to five groups linked to the movement to combat so-called disinformation and misinformation, which is often criticized by conservatives as promoting censorship and political bias, according to a Washington Examiner review of grants.

Arnold, a former Enron executive, founded the LLC with his wife, Laura Arnold. The group purports to be nonpartisan and manages financial giving for several Arnold-affiliated entities, such as the Laura and John Arnold Foundation. In 2021, Arnold Ventures awarded over $409 million in grants, according to its website.

In recent years, private industry and the Biden administration have sought to crack down on perceived disinformation and misinformation. Arnold Ventures, which has donated to many different causes, including over $45 million toward criminal justice reform in New York that Republicans say led to a crime spike, says on its website that "the rise of disinformation" has "threatened to undermine" journalism.

In 2018, Arnold Ventures notably joined other groups to bankroll a partnership with Facebook analyzing elections, democracy, and the tech giant's "ability to fight the spread of misinformation and foreign interference."

Arnold Ventures has given tens of millions in "journalism" grants, according to its grants database. Included in this sum is the $9.7 million it awarded between 2019 and 2021 to the American Journalism Project, which invests in local news nonprofit groups and has received $4.2 million from the Democracy Fund, a left-wing foundation created by eBay founder Pierre Omidyar that has contributed millions of dollars to fight alleged misinformation and disinformation.

AJP, on its website, says:
"In the absence of trusted news sources, we see targeted disinformation campaigns, including efforts to spread misinformation through social networks and websites masquerading as news brands."
AJP is also partnered with the Racial Equity in Journalism Fund, which has donated millions of dollars in grants to liberal news outlets across the country.

In May, the journalism fund hosted an event that explored how a "Black, Indigenous, and People of Color media ecosystem" could be a "solution" to fighting purported disinformation and misinformation. One speaker at that event was Jaime Longoria of the Disinfo Defense League, a group working "to combat racialized disinformation" that is a project of the Media Democracy Fund, according to the journalism fund.

The Media Democracy Fund has supported the government having more regulatory control over the internet and is a project of the New Venture Fund, a group managed by Arabella Advisors, the largest left-wing dark money network in the United States. Between 2016 and 2020, Arnold Ventures has donated over $13.5 million to the New Venture Fund, according to the Arnold Ventures grants database.

Scott Walter, president of Capital Research Center, a conservative investigative think tank, told the Washington Examiner:
"The Arnolds's philanthropy began years ago with a mix of conservative and left-wing causes, but over time it has moved consistently leftward, probably from a combination of pressure from their Big Philanthropy peers and the staff they've hired. It's especially sad to see them backing the left-wing scam of cancel culture camouflaged under the label of fighting misinformation and disinformation."
Arnold Ventures has also donated $1.5 million between 2018 and 2022 to the Social Science Research Council, a New York nonprofit group that does research in the social sciences and other disciplines, records show. The grants were in part to support the council's Social Media and Democracy Initiative, which is partnered with Omidyar's Democracy Fund.

The Social Science Research Council operates a project called Mediawell that "curates research and news on digital disinformation and misinformation," according to its website. Mediawell, for instance, promotes an article on its website that is titled "Fighting an indestructible monster: Journalism's legitimacy narratives during the Trump Era."

Mediawell also promotes an Axios article on its website that is titled "Racist 'white replacement theory' goes mainstream with Republicans" and a New Yorker piece titled "How a Conservative Activist Invented the Conflict Over Critical Race Theory" about right-wing education activist Christopher Rufo.

In addition, the council operates the Mercury Project, an over $25 million research operation dishing out three-year grants to groups and researchers studying alleged misinformation and disinformation in connection to vaccines and public health policy development.

Between 2013 and 2019, Arnold Ventures also shelled out over $1.1 million to MapLight, a liberal research nonprofit group tracking money and politics in elections.

MapLight has taken $300,000 from left-wing billionaire George Soros, records show. In 2014, the organization was listed along with other "progressive" groups on a 57-page document published by the Democracy Alliance, a secretive network and club of wealthy left-wing donors that Soros co-founded to influence the Democratic agenda.

MapLight released an article in November 2021 titled "A New Plan to Empower Voters and Fight Disinformation" that called on state and federal lawmakers to pass laws to "reduce the quantity, spread, and impact of electoral disinformation."

The article promoted MapLight's Voter Empowerment Plan, an eight-page memo with the subheading "How to Fight Disinformation and Safeguard Elections." The memo advocated lawmakers approving "criminal penalties for deceptive practices intended to intimidate voters."
memo
© screenshotDemocracy Alliance 2014 memo
Daniel Newman, president of MapLight, told the Washington Examiner:
"MapLight no longer works in the disinformation area, having shifted our focus to data and technology projects. Arnold Ventures is not currently a funder of MapLight. None of their past grants to MapLight have gone toward our disinformation initiatives."
Jon Schweppe, policy director for the American Principles Project, a conservative think tank, said:
"Fighting purported disinformation and misinformation has 'been a goal' of the Left for a long time. In terms of the funders, they understand that if you can control the narrative fully and use tech platforms and the media, there will never be a threat posed to them by Democracy, or by the voters. Free speech has been targeted by the 'growth and concentration of power' within corporations and large institutions."

The Lenfest Institute for Journalism, which funds media operations and is based in Philadelphia, received $500,000 from Arnold Ventures between 2021 and 2022, records show. The grants were to support two left-leaning news outlets — Spotlight PA and Capital B News.

In March 2021, the institute published a report prepared by Newsguard, a web browser extension that ranks the trustworthiness of news outlets and has been slammed as biased by conservatives. The report analyzed websites and whether they have been effective at combating alleged misinformation and disinformation.

Spotlight PA regularly publishes articles on purported misinformation and disinformation. In April, the website released a "guide" for voters to spot "election misinformation" that instructed people to use the left-leaning fact-checking website PolitiFact "to assess the accuracy of claims" and "report" any "disinformation" on the internet to social media platforms and search engines.

Jim Friedlich, executive director and CEO of the institute, told the Washington Examiner:
"The Lenfest Institute for Journalism is a nonpartisan organization devoted to supporting sustainable business models for local news. We believe that the best way to combat mis- and disinformation, no matter what its source, is to help ensure a strong and sustainable free press."
Arnold Ventures also gave $500,000 in 2020 to Global Witness, a California-based nonprofit group that says it researches and investigates "the exploitation of natural resources" by private and public entities. The grant was for "general operating support," according to the Arnold Ventures grants database.

Global Witness operates within a network of several groups, including Global Witness Limited, a London-based organization that the Washington Examiner revealed in September has received over $17.8 million from Soros.

The U.K. organization published a study in October on "election disinformation" in the U.S. that demanded TikTok, Meta, and YouTube ramp up censorship ahead of the midterm elections. It has also published numerous investigations on its website mentioning "disinformation" in connection to social media platforms.

One article from November criticized Meta for not censoring "far-right hate speech" in Norway. It said there is a "resurgence of far-right parties" and called on Norway's government to establish "an algorithmic oversight board" to vet online content.

Dominic Kavakeb, a spokeswoman for Global Witness, told the Washington Examiner:
"Arnold Ventures was a Global Witness funder until 2020. Global Witness is grateful for the contribution of all its previous and existing donors."