Global Disinformation Index Loses Funding From the National Endowment for Democracy – Hinting at Broader Challenges For Such Efforts

When organizations work to establish disinformation monitoring programs, it can be risky for them to focus on just one end of the political spectrum. That can give an appearance of bias – which can have a long-term impact on whether their monitoring and rating efforts can have a lasting impact.

That appearance of bias recently caused one British disinformation monitoring group, called the Global Disinformation Index (GDI), to lose funding from the U.S. based National Endowment for Democracy (NED).

As a private foundation created by Congress, with annual funding through the U.S.State Department budget, the NED provides grants to organizations to help promote democracy around the world.

The controversy came to a head because the GDI, was engaged in an initiative focused on U.S. media outlets. The GDI, through funding provided by a different donor, maintains a list of what it calls the 10 most dangerous online sites for disinformation. The list gained extra attention when there were accusations the list is heavily tilted toward conservative or libertarian sites.

The GDI also provides so-called blacklists to online ad companies, with a goal of urging advertisers to not do business with what it considers purveyors of disinformation.

It’s important to note the NED itself was not directly accused of bias. It was helping to fund the GDI, and it dropped that funding when the GDI was accused of bias.

The National Endowment for Democracy was founded during the Reagan Administration and awards over 2,000 annual grants to support various non-governmental groups globally who are working to promote democratic goals. According to its own statements, the NED was “created jointly by Republicans and Democrats,” during the Reagan Administration and is “governed by a board balanced between both parties and enjoys Congressional support across the political spectrum.” It funds projects if feels will help protect democracy.

In a statement, the NED said “We recognize the important work GDI has done with NED support in other countries to help preserve the integrity of the information space and counter authoritarian influence. However, given our commitment to avoid the perception that NED is engaged in any work domestically, directly or indirectly, we will no longer provide financial support to GDI.”

Even though the NED has halted the funding, there could still be repercussions. On February 23,  Rep. James Comer (R-KY), chairman of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee, said the committee is demanding records and a State Department briefing related to the agency bankrolling a “disinformation” tracking group that is blacklisting conservative news outlets.

Clearly, this is an area where non-profit disinformation tracking groups will need to walk a fine line. Tracking such disinformation campaigns is increasingly necessary, yet the very activity of calling out distributors of disinformation, misinformation and propaganda can set off its own firestorm.

Further complicating the issue is that foreign influencers and purveyors of carefully crafted disinformation seem to have a preference for trying to insert their disinformation into the news sites at specific end of the political spectrum. That means those news sites will need to become extra vigilant against false news stories, even as they block monitoring efforts they don’t agree with.