Matt Bush, FISM News
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The multinational software company Oracle is parting ways with the Global Disinformation Index (GDI), a British-based company funded by the U.S. government that exists to stop online disinformation.
The GDI website states, “GDI provides independent, neutral and transparent data and intelligence to advise policymakers and business leaders about how to combat disinformation and its creators.”
Oracle announced a collaboration with GDI in 2021 to help the company navigate its online advertising and to ensure Oracle was not connected to known “disinformation” sites.
“To prevent placements on disinformation sites, brands require a proactive, always-on brand safety approach that helps marketers identify suitable environments while avoiding brand-damaging ones,” Oracle said when the group struck the deal. “Today, we’re proud to announce a collaboration with The Global Disinformation Index (GDI), an independent non-profit that provides trusted, non-partisan ratings to assess a site’s disinformation risk, to help marketers safeguard ad spend and protect brands from inadvertently supporting disinformation sites.”
Less than two years later, and amid major accusations of GDI specifically targeting conservative groups, Oracle has ended that partnership.
In March, Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.) sent a letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken questioning the use of federal funds being sent to GDI.
GDI has received hundreds of thousands of dollars from the U.S. government, roughly $545,000 from from the National Endowment for Democracy and $100,000 from the State Department’s Global Engagement Center (GEC). Presumably, that money was paid to GDI to help stop the flow of disinformation in America.
“The GDI has used this funding to create a list of news organizations for advertisers and business interests to abstain from doing business with in an attempt to limit these organizations’ participation in the marketplace of ideas,” Buck wrote. “Paying foreign (and domestic) entities to perform what is essentially censorship is troubling on two fronts: it wastes taxpayer funds and undermines constitutional protections for freedom of speech.”
The GDI released a report listing the 10 riskiest and least risky online news outlets in America called the “Disinformation Risk Assessment: The Online News Market in the United States.”
Included in the riskiest outlets were the New York Post, Daily Wire, Real Clear Politics, News Max, The Blaze, and The Federalist.
The news outlets said to be the least risky include the Wall Street Journal, AP, New York Times, Washington Post, USA Today, ProPublica, and the least risky was NPR.
“After conducting a review, we agree with others in the advertising industry that the services we provide marketers must be in full support of free speech, which is why we are ending our relationship with GDI,” Michael Egbert, vice president for corporate communications at Oracle, said in a statement on Wednesday to the Washington Examiner.
A simple examination of the outlets listed as the riskiest and least risky show that Oracle made the right decision and that GDI seemed to specifically target conservative outlets.