The UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth, and Development Office is funding London-based think tank the Global Disinformation Index (GDI), which creates a blacklist of websites it thinks advertisers should avoid that are mostly right-of-center news websites.
GDI states that its objective is to “disrupt their advertising-funded business models by encouraging brands, suppliers and ad tech vendors to blocklist them.”
The GDI is also funded by the US State Department.
Recently, the think tank published a list of 10 “least risky” and “riskiest” news websites in the US. The New York Times, Washington Post, BuzzFeed News, and AP News were among the list of “least risky.” Among the 10 “riskiest” websites were the New York Post, Newsmax, the American Spectator, and The Federalist.
GDI also wants anything that challenges scientific consensus on vaccines and climate change to be blocked. For instance it is disinformation to describe the COVID-19 vaccines as “experimental.”
The GDI is on a mission to “defund online sources of disinformation.”
