InfluenceWatch Friday

InfluenceWatch, a project of Capital Research Center, is a comprehensive and ever-evolving compilation of our research into the numerous advocacy groups, foundations, and donors working to influence the public policy process. The website offers transparency into these influencers’ funding, motives, and connections while providing insight often neglected by other watchdog groups.

The information compiled in InfluenceWatch gives news outlets and other interested parties research to use in reporting on significant topics that are often overlooked by the American public.

CRC is pleased to present some of the most significant additions to InfluenceWatch in the past week:

• American Journalism Project (AJP) is a grantmaking organization that provides funding to local news organizations and outlets whose operations would otherwise be unsustainable without government funding. In July 2023, the organization received a $5 million contribution from technology company OpenAI, plus an additional $5 million in company credits meant to encourage AJP’s grantees to use OpenAI’s artificial intelligence software.
• Design It For Us is a coalition created by technology policy groups which supported the passage of the California Age Appropriate Design Code (AADC), a law regulating the collection and storage of children’s data online. As of September 2023, a federal judge granted a request for a preliminary injunction due to claims that the AADC might violate the First Amendment.
• Log Off Movement is a youth technology activist organization that supports efforts towards increasing online regulation of social media and online content. The group itself is a registered trade name for North Fund, a nonprofit organization managed by philanthropic consulting firm Arabella Advisors. Individual grants to the group are routed through Democrat-aligned fundraising platform ActBlue Civics.
• Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is a digital rights advocacy organization claiming to fight against online censorship and surveillance by the government. The group has previously received grants from several left-of-center groups including the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Ford Foundation, and the Open Society Foundations. The EFF has also controversially received funding from social media companies including Google and Facebook.
• United Food and Commercial Workers Local 770 (UFCW Local 770) is a California-based labor union representing workers in retail health, grocery, and packing industries. It supports California Senate Bill (SB) 553, requiring local businesses to develop and implement workplace violence prevention plans, which passed the California Legislature in September 2023. Local 770 is the largest local affiliate of the UFCW, which is itself part of the American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO).