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Global Disinformation Index

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Global Disinformation Index
Disinformation Index Ltd
Formation2018
TypeNonprofit
Legal statusCompany limited by guarantee (registered in England & Wales)
Location
Key people
Clare Melford, Daniel Rogers
Websitewww.disinformationindex.org

Global Disinformation Index (GDI) is a not-for-profit organisation based in the United Kingdom[1][2] which aims to mitigate the spread of disinformation on the internet.[3][4][5] The group utilises a system of ratings of news sources and websites to determine risk of disinformation.[6] The group's efforts also include investigations into internet advertising,[7] and the alleged use of disinformation in relation to COVID-19 featured on various websites.[4]

The group has faced scrutiny over potential political bias,[8][9][10][11][12][13][14] and has been categorised as a political left think tank by the group AllSides.[15][16]

Overview[edit]

GDI was founded in 2018[17] by Clare Melford, Alexandra Mousavizadeh and Daniel Rogers,[18][19] and has received funding through a combination of charitable trusts, governmental organizations, and ad tech licensees of its dynamic exclusion list. Contributors include the Knight Foundation,[20][17][21] Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO),[22] and Luminate Group.[23]

One of its strategies promoted by GDI is the aim to remove financial incentives for news content that promotes "adversarial narratives"[clarification needed].[17][24] GDI's investigation of COVID-19 disinformation focused on the generation of illicit revenue for websites.[25]

GDI has reported that a recent[when?] evaluation of Italian online news sites resulted in categorising one third of the evaluated sites as high risk of disinformation.[26]

Reception[edit]

GDI's alleged bias was first reported by the Washington Examiner, a U.S. conservative website, which released an investigative series in February 2023 that said GDI was "part of a stealth operation blacklisting and trying to defund conservative media, likely costing the news companies large sums in advertising dollars".[27] Kaminsky pointed out that all 10 outlets that GDI in a report[28] identified as the "riskiest" and "worst" all leaned to the political right wile all but one of the 10 ranked "least risky" leaned to the political left.[27] The journalist who authored that series of stories, Gabe Kaminsky, said that GDI received $100,000 from the U.S. Department of State.[29][30][31] However, the State Department has denied that the grant was used to "blacklist" any companies in the U.S.[citation needed]

The series in the Washington Examiner sparked outcry among conservatives, and prompted a lawsuit by The Daily Wire and The Federalist, two U.S. right-wing websites, against the State Department.[32][33] The State Department-funded National Endowment for Democracy announced in 2023 that it would no longer fund GDI.[34] After the series of stories, Microsoft's Xandr cut ties with GDI and exited the political advertising space.[35][36] Congress passed a law in 2023 that banned the Pentagon from funding GDI in the future for military recruitment advertising.[37]

In April 2024, UnHerd CEO Freddie Sayers criticized GDI after it placed UnHerd on its "dynamic exclusion list", leading to a reduction in UnHerd's advertising revenue.[38][39] Sayers argued that GDI's determination was based on ideological disagreements rather than factual inaccuracies.[11][40] In response, Elon Musk, the CEO of Twitter, called for GDI to be shut down.[41]

Following UnHerd's article, UK Business Secretary Kemi Badenoch joined around 10 MPs in raising concerns about GDI and their approach to distinguishing between free speech and disinformation.[42] In response to Badenoch's concerns, Foreign Secretary David Cameron stated that FCDO had ceased funding GDI in 2023 and did not plan to resume funding.[43][40]

Advisory panel[edit]

Until March 2023, GDI publically disclosed members of its "Advisory Panel". Amongst others, these have included Anne Applebaum, Peter Pomerantsev, Miguel Martinez and Hany Farid.[44] Reason reported in February 2023 that Applebaum had asked for her name to removed from the GDI website as she had not been in contact with GDI since 2019.[45]

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ Bakir, V., & McStay, A. (2023). Defending the Civic Body from False Information Online. In Optimising Emotions, Incubating Falsehoods: How to Protect the Global Civic Body from Disinformation and Misinformation (pp. 205-246). Cham: Springer International Publishing.
  2. ^ Privacy. GDI. Accessed 26 April 2024.
  3. ^ Salehi, H., & Kardouni, N. (2023). Fake News and Disinformation in the Perspective of International Peace and Security. Journal of Legal Studies, 15(2), 321-353.
  4. ^ a b Zendelovski, G., & Cvetkovski, S. (2021). The Pandemic of Fake News and Disinformation in the Age of Deglobalization. Security Dialogues.
  5. ^ Pratelli, M., & Petrocchi, M. (2022). A Structured Analysis of Journalistic Evaluations for News Source Reliability. arXiv preprint arXiv:2205.02736.
  6. ^ Glazunova, S., Dehghan, E., FitzGerald, K. M., Wikstrom, P., & Myint, Z. (2021). Disinformation Risk Assessment: The online news market in Australia.
  7. ^ Aaronson, S. (2021). Can Trade Agreements Solve the Wicked Problem of Disinformation (No. 2021-12).
  8. ^ Myers, Steven Lee (December 14, 2023). "State Dept.'s Fight Against Disinformation Comes Under Attack". The New York Times. Archived from the original on April 25, 2024. Retrieved April 26, 2024 – via NYTimes.com.
  9. ^ Farber, Alex (April 22, 2024). "Foreign Office link to 'biased' report on unreliable news sites". Archived from the original on April 18, 2024. Retrieved April 26, 2024 – via www.thetimes.co.uk.
  10. ^ "Hugh Linehan: Who watches the watchers when it comes to disinformation?". The Irish Times. Archived from the original on 2024-04-22. Retrieved 2024-04-26.
  11. ^ a b Sayers, Freddie (17 April 2024). "Inside the disinformation industry". UnHerd.
  12. ^ "Der "Global Disinformation Index" bekämpft auch missliebige Meinungen" (in German). 19 April 2024. Archived from the original on 22 April 2024. Retrieved 26 April 2024.
  13. ^ "A combination of self-delusion and self-righteousness is a surefire way for experts to lose our trust". The Boston Globe. 9 May 2024. Archived from the original on 20 May 2024. Retrieved 20 May 2024.
  14. ^ "The Times view on press ratings agencies: Arbiters of Truth". The Times. 13 May 2024. Archived from the original on 20 May 2024. Retrieved 20 May 2024.
  15. ^ Global Disinformation Index Archived 2024-04-26 at the Wayback Machine AllSides. Accessed 26 April 2024.
  16. ^ Brechter, H. A. (2023). Misinformation Watch: 'Disinformation Risk Assessment' Lacks Transparency, Shows Bias Against the Right. Archived 2024-04-26 at the Wayback Machine AllSides. 20 Feb 2023. Accessed 26 April 2024.
  17. ^ a b c Disinformation index Archived 2024-04-29 at the Wayback Machine www.rand.org. Accessed 26 April 2024.
  18. ^ Alexandra Mousavizadeh is listed as a founder Archived 2024-04-29 at the Wayback Machine by Rand Corp.
  19. ^ About Archived 2024-04-23 at the Wayback Machine. GDI. Accessed 26 April 2024.
  20. ^ Ignatidou, S. (2019). EU–US cooperation on tackling disinformation. International Security Department. September.
  21. ^ "Knight Research Network". Knight Foundation. Archived from the original on 2024-04-18. Retrieved 2024-04-26.
  22. ^ "Written questions, answers and statements - UK Parliament". Archived from the original on 2024-04-18. Retrieved 2024-04-26.
  23. ^ "Global Disinformation Index". www.luminategroup.com.
  24. ^ "FKN0058 - Evidence on Disinformation and 'fake news'". Archived from the original on 2024-04-17. Retrieved 2024-04-26.
  25. ^ Verrall, N. (2022). COVID-19 Disinformation, misinformation and malinformation during the pandemic infodemic: a view from the United Kingdom. In COVID-19 disinformation: a multi-national, whole of society perspective (pp. 81-112). Cham: Springer International Publishing.
  26. ^ Lesser, M., Stern, H. J., & Terp, S. J. (2022). Countering Russian Misinformation, Disinformation, Malinformation and Influence Campaigns in Italy Surrounding the Russian Invasion of Ukraine. In IFDaD.
  27. ^ a b Kaminsky, Gabe (2023-02-09). "Disinformation Inc: Meet the groups hauling in cash to secretly blacklist conservative news - Washington Examiner". Retrieved 2024-06-23.
  28. ^ "Brief: Disinformation Risk in the United States Online Media Market, October 2022" (archived), disinformationindex.org, 21 October 2022.
  29. ^ Kaminsky, Gabe (2023-02-10). "Disinformation Inc: State Department bankrolls group secretly blacklisting conservative media - Washington Examiner". Retrieved 2024-06-23.
  30. ^ Flood, Brian (2023-02-15). "State Department funds 'disinformation' index targeting non-liberal and conservative news outlets: report". Fox News. Retrieved 2024-06-23.
  31. ^ Soave, Robby (2023-02-14). "U.S. State Department funds a disinformation index that warns advertisers to avoid 'Reason'". Reason.com. Retrieved 2024-06-23.
  32. ^ "Daily Wire Censorship Claims Survive Against State Department". news.bloomberglaw.com. Retrieved 2024-06-23.
  33. ^ "NCLA Defeats Motion to Dismiss, Wins Expedited Discovery in Suit Alleging State Dept. Censorship". Morningstar, Inc. 2024-05-07. Retrieved 2024-06-23.
  34. ^ Kaminsky, Gabe (2023-02-20). "Disinformation Inc: State Department-backed group cuts ties with group blacklisting conservative news - Washington Examiner". Retrieved 2024-06-23.
  35. ^ Fischer, Sara (July 27, 2023). "Microsoft's Xandr bans political ads". Axios.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  36. ^ Kaminsky, Gabe (2023-02-11). "Disinformation Inc: Microsoft suspends relationship with group blacklisting conservative news - Washington Examiner". Retrieved 2024-06-23.
  37. ^ Kaminsky, Gabe (2023-12-11). "Inside the GOP's tense negotiations with Democrats to ban Pentagon-funded 'censorship' - Washington Examiner". Retrieved 2024-06-23.
  38. ^ Ponsford, Dominic (23 April 2024). "'Anti-trans narratives' see Unherd put on advertising blacklist". Press Gazette. Retrieved 20 June 2024.
  39. ^ Linehan, High (20 April 2024). "Who watches the watchers when it comes to disinformation?". The Irish Times. Archived from the original on 20 April 2024. Retrieved 20 June 2024.
  40. ^ a b Farber, Alex (10 May 2024). "Cameron says government has stopped funding disinformation index". The Times. Archived from the original on 11 May 2024. Retrieved 11 May 2024.
  41. ^ Earle, A (2024). "Elon Musk: Global Disinformation Index should be shut down." UnHerd. April 19 2024. Accessed May 10 2024.
  42. ^ Farber, Alex (19 April 2024). "MPs oppose funding disinformation ratings agency in blacklisting row". The Times. Archived from the original on 12 May 2024. Retrieved 11 May 2024.
  43. ^ Earle, A (2024). "David Cameron: Government will no longer fund Global Disinformation Index." Archived 2024-05-10 at the Wayback Machine UnHerd. May 9 2024. Accessed May 10 2024.
  44. ^ "Our Story - Advisory Plan". Global Disinformation Index. Archived from the original on 10 February 2023. Retrieved 22 June 2024.
  45. ^ Soave, Robby (28 February 2023). "Global Disinformation Index, Inform Thyself". Reason. Retrieved 22 June 2024.
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