Global Disinformation Index
Finding those who corrupt the world’s information.
WHY NOW?
We are at a watershed moment of internet’s history. Whilst it has brought us great benefits for our society, the freedom has a downside.
Join us in the fight back
THE INDEX
THE CHALLENGE
The world we are in
The internet is one of the greatest agents of free speech and democracy the world has ever seen. It has given individuals and communities access to unprecedented tools for self-expression, new platforms to build communities and new capabilities to speak truth to power.
Yet at the same time, those same decentralising qualities have made the internet and social media vulnerable to abuse by some of the darkest forces in our society – who are determined to exploit the openness and connectedness that the Internet and social media has given us to spread division, fear and mistrust.
Disinformation on the rise
One of the increasingly damaging aspects of this is Disinformation, deliberately false content, designed to deceive for financial or political gain.
Principles, Governance and Funding
The Disinformation Index is a global cross-sector coalition between governments, business and civil society. We operate on three principles of Neutrality, Independence and Transparency.
Neutral
Independent
Transparent
The index is non-political. It’s governing board will comprise independent trustees with no commercial link to the media. Our Advisory Panel comprises experts in Disinformation, Indices and Technology from around the globe.
Our funding will come from a range of sources including governmental, philanthropic and from companies. No one funder will comprise more than 33% of the total funding base. We are a not for profit UK company.
Our index methodology will be published, all media sources rated will have the scores behind their rating. Our funders list will be continually updated online.
OUR VISION
A world in which we can trust what we see in the media
OUR MISSION
Restore trust in the media by providing real-time automated risk ratings of the world’s media sites through a Global Disinformation Index
TEAM
CO-DIRECTORS
Our project is led by executives with expertise in multi-sector coalitions, media, Artificial Intelligence and index development.
Alexandra Mousavizadeh
Co-Founder
Decima
Alexandra has 20 years’ experience in index construction and data analysis. She recently oversaw the expansion of the Legatum Institute’s flagship publication, The Prosperity Index and all its bespoke metrics-based analysis and policy creation for governments and businesses. Prior roles include CEO of Arc Ratings, a global emerging markets based ratings agency; Sovereign Analyst for Moody’s and head of Country Risk Management, Morgan Stanley.
Clare Melford
Co-Founder
9 Degrees
Clare Melford is an experienced CEO in the commercial and not for profit sectors. She is an expert in building and managing cross-sector coalitions. Former CEO of the International Business Leaders Forum and MD of MTV Networks, Nordics. She has worked on start ups in E-commerce, Fin-tech & Ed-tech. She is a founding board member of Girls not Brides, the global coalition to end child marriage.
Dr. Daniel Rogers
Co-Founder
Terbium Labs & Veracity.ai
Danny is a physicist, an author, and an expert in the fields of cryptography, cybercrime, disinformation, and security, and has published numerous patents, papers, and books on those and other subjects. Prior to co-founding both Terbium Labs and the Global Disinformation Index, Danny managed a portfolio of physics and sensor research projects at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. He has a Bachelor’s degree in Math and Physics from Georgetown University and a Doctorate in Chemical Physics from the University of Maryland. He currently teaches in the Cybercrime and Global Security Masters Program at New York University’s Center for Global Affairs and is a Security Fellow at the Truman Project on National Security.
ADVISORY PANEL
Broad Coalition of Academia, Disinformation Experts, AI Specialists and Index Experts.
Anne Applebaum
Professor in Practice and Co-Director of Arena, LSE
Peter Pomerantsev
Co-Director of Arena, LSE
Lisa-Maria Neudert
Researcher, Computational Propaganda Project, Oxford
Miguel Martinez,
Co-Founder & Chief Data Scientist, Signal
“A neutral, independent, transparent and flexible index like the GDI will give governments, advertisers, readers and journalists some real metrics for the first time.
If we are going to begin a broad conversation about regulation, we need to know a lot more about what we are regulating.”
Anne Applebaum, Professor in Practice and Co-Director of Arena, LSE
NEWS
WHAT'S NEW
GDI HAS RECEIVED FUNDING
The GDI has now received funding from 2 governments and 2 foundations. Public announcements in Q4 2018
ONGOING PROJECTS
What we are working on:
1) a white paper produced with support from our advisory panel on the index methodology;
2) An expanded prototype of our AI-powered classifier which can identify junk domains automatically;
3) An API which would allow this classifier to interact directly with programmatic ad networks allowing advertisers for the first time access to a dynamic blacklist of sites thereby choking off funding for disinformation domains;
4) building the cross-sector coalition to tackle all forms of disinformation
FIRST RESULTS Q2 2019
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