The Global Disinformation Index

The Global Disinformation Index (GDI), founded in 2018, is a UK not-for-profit organization with 11-50 employees. Our team includes experts in disinformation, AI, and measurement.

We rate media sites based on their risk of spreading disinformation. This involves both automated and human review to provide a neutral and transparent assessment of disinformation risk for specific news outlets. We offer these metrics to help governments, advertisers, media, and the public understand which news sites carry disinformation.

Our work includes researching disinformation and its harms, creating country reports on disinformation risk for media markets, and sharing insights about the information ecosystem. We partner with governments, civil society, and industry to create better standards for online accountability, increase transparency in content promotion and monetization, and help reliable information thrive.

We define disinformation as deliberately misleading content or the strategic omission of facts, created to push financial, political, or ideological agendas. Our goal is to address the systemic problem where online platforms and business models can encourage harmful content. Disinformation harms include eroding trust, widening division, and undermining democratic processes, scientific consensus, and public health systems. Its impacts can range from financial loss to violence for vulnerable groups.

Our mission is to change how disinformation operates by disrupting its business model. We want to remove the incentives that allow online disinformation to be created and spread. We strive to strengthen internet systems so that truth prevails and disinformation loses its influence, aiming for a world free of disinformation and its associated harms.

We operate on three core principles: neutrality, independence, and transparency.

• Neutrality: We maintain a non-political stance. Our governing board comprises independent trustees without commercial media links, and our Advisory Panel includes international experts in disinformation, indices, and technology.
• Independence: We are a UK not-for-profit organization. Our funding comes from government, philanthropic, and company sources, with no single source contributing more than 33% of our total funding.
• Transparency: We publish our index methodology, including the scores behind news domain ratings, and continuously update our list of funders online.

Our team’s core behaviors include problem-solving, trust, respect, and responsibility.

We have a team of 11-50 employees, including experts from around the world in disinformation, artificial intelligence, and measurement. We are committed to the growth and development of our people and teams. Team building focuses on combining diverse skills and encouraging core behaviors like problem-solving, trust, respect, and responsibility.

We pay our employees a market rate, which we benchmark against similar roles. We consider each person’s skills, experience, and local market conditions.