Type of site | Online Database |
|---|---|
| Available in | English |
| Owner | David Horowitz Freedom Center |
| Revenue | Donations |
| URL | discoverthenetworks |
| Commercial | No |
| Current status | Active |
Discover the Networks (originallyDiscover the Network) (DtN) is a website run by theDavid Horowitz Freedom Center that focuses on tracking individuals, groups, and the history of groups that are politicallyleft wing. DtN was launched in 2004 and has a staff of about a dozen contributors. Its editor-in-chief wasDavid Horowitz; John Perazzo is the project's managing editor, and Richard Poe is its investigative editor. Discover the Networks is associated withFrontPage Magazine.
The project's contributors contend that the political left in the United States commonly applies a "deceptive public presentation" of itself that conceals a network of affiliations and shared political views with "radical agendas". It views these associalist,environmentalist and "anti-American" causes.[1] The website is meant to be the conservative analog of left-leaning websites that compile lists that include conservatives such as those created bySouthern Poverty Law Center andMedia Matters.[2]
The website has been criticized for including leftists on the same list asterrorists.[2] Horowitz, who wrote about the alleged connection between these groups in his bookUnholy Alliance, says "that groups who despise one another might actually be working closely together, maybe without even knowing it." It's not what they are for but that they are "linked by anti-Americanism" that accounts for their being in alignment on the political front.[2]Dean Saitta objects to being described as a supporter ofWard Churchill.[3]
DtN currently maintains a database of prominent leftist personalities in academia, politics, and the media as well as leftist interest groups.[4][5] It assembles and publishes data on the financial backers ofleft wing personalities and organizations. Much of their research focuses upon individuals with financial connections to groups that espouse communism and socialism as well as Palestinians and their supporters, but the group is also concerned with critics of theUSA PATRIOT Act, advocates ofsocial justice (which the website refers to as a "post-Communist terminology for socialism and communism"), and members or supporters oflabor unions.[citation needed]
When first launched the website was criticized for a jump page picturing entertainment celebrities such asBruce Springsteen andBarbra Streisand adjacent to radical Muslim terrorists.[6][7] The site now divides the pictures on the jump page into distinct categories.[8][9]
The website houses the articles of historianRon Radosh.[10]
The website houses the articles of undercover investigative journalist Lee Kaplan.[11]
