Elon Musk The Global Disinformation Index (GDI) accused of spreading false information themselves, and Elon Musk said it should be shut down after it blacklisted a British news and opinion outlet.
UnHerd received a boycott from many online advertisers because the UK-based non-profit GDI labeled some of its articles as “anti-trans narratives” and gave it a low “brand-safety” rating. GDI aims to steer advertisers away from what it considers “harmful content.”
In a video about UnHerd’s investigation of GDI and its influence on advertisers, CEO and editor-in-chief Freddie Sayers explained the issue. Freddie Sayers explained that the problem arose when advertising agencies were puzzled by the low return despite high audience numbers. The final agency then found out that the site had been flagged as disinformation by Oracle, a product strategy software firm, based on data from GDI.
GDI gave the publication a low score for articles challenging transgender self-identification and sex-change surgeries.
Unherd’s mission statement says that the publication has no allegiance to any political party or tradition, and is not interested in “contrarianism” but seeks to challenge the lazy consensus and explore broader wisdom from sidelined thinkers. “You have a weird scenario,” he said, “where a self-appointed organisation is deciding that a explicitly legal and majority held view is enough to get an entire website blocked from international ad exchanges.”
Sayers criticized the rise of non-profits like GDI, stating, “Under the umbrella term of disinformation, there’s been this huge blossoming of not-for-profits, companies and indeed government agencies that can take very politicised views on things without proper accountability.”
He continued, “The other way of looking at it is that establishment voices being challenged during events like Brexit, President Donald Trump’s election and COVID pandemic by opinions that they didn’t hold, and yet lots of people outside the beltway did hold, had to come up with new measures to outlaw them, to deem other opinions as somehow unacceptable.
Sayers added, “[Disinformation flagging is] a way of moving what should be a political conversation into the realm of expertise and saying, ‘No, there is an official truth here. And if you don’t agree with it, you are dangerous, you’re irresponsible, your voice shouldn’t be heard.’”
In his investigation, Sayers looked at GDI’s history and founder, who openly tout backgrounds in the U.S. intelligence community, machine learning development, and European think-tanks. “The Global Disinformation Index was founded in the UK in 2018. And its objective, as it stated at the time, was explicitly to disrupt the business model for online disinformation by starving offending publications of funding.”
Pointing to the organization’s funding, which partly comes from the UK government, Sayers said this association poses a serious threat to free speech and free debate, highlighting that without interference Unherd’s advertising revenue would significantly increase, but is being stifled by GDI’s algorithm-assisted rating system.
Subtweeting UnHerd’s investigation, Musk shared his opinion:
Meanwhile, GDI defends its practices as necessary for fighting misinformation online.
Ironically, GDI pushes disinformation and should be shut down, with recriminations for the miscreants https://t.co/0wXau0T9gm
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 18, 2024
Elon Musk accused the Global Disinformation Index (GDI) of promoting “disinformation” and called for it to be closed down after the organization blacklisted British news and opinion outlet Unherd. UnHerd faced a boycott from several online advertisers after UK-based non-profit GDI labeled some of its articles as “anti-trans narratives” and took action against it […]
