Worth watching - Unherd investigation - Inside the 'disinformation' industry. Kathleen Stock specifically mentioned.

[OvaHere]

Freddie Sayers recently attended a government special committee about News where he raised problems Unherd have had with ad revenue and ad agencies.

It turns out Unherd have been placed on an exclusion list by a British company called the Global Disinformation Index. This company is funded in part by money from various global government departments including our FCDO.

After finding this out Unherd appealed and asked the GDI for an explanation. After some weeks they got a response that rejected the appeal and were told it was because they hosted gender critical content and specifically named Kathleen Stock and her objections to the reform of the GRA 2004.

Our team re-reviewed the domain, the rating will not change as it continues to have anti LGBTQI+ narratives... The site authors have also been called out for being anti -trans. Kathleen Stock is acknowledged as a "prominent gender- critical" feminist. She has opposed transgender self identification in regards to proposed reforms in the 2004 UK Gender Recognition Act.

It's not clear if this is the entirety of the GDI response to Unherd however they are clear that they consider Professor Stock's views 'disinformation'. If you watch the video you'll discover the GDI have conveniently broadened the definition of disinformation beyond just that which is false or factually incorrect.

Unsurprisingly they don't apply this to discourse their founders like and agree with.

I can't find the post but a MNer made some very similar arguments about young women enforcing "no offence" and disregarding the consequences of those harmed (I've paraphrased).

But university environments, as is patently evident to all but the most insulated and echo chamber-bound, are not committing enough to this principle. Nor are other places where freedom to offend must take precedence over subjective feelings, such the arts and the press. Take the pompously named Global Disinformation Index (GDI), which “[advises] policymakers and business leaders about how to combat disinformation”. The GDI’s definition of what constitutes “disinformation” is extremely dubious. The head of the organisation, Claire Metford has stated:
A lot of disinformation is not just whether something is true or false — it escapes from the limits of fact-checking. Something can be factually accurate but still extremely harmful…

The writer introduced Stephen Daisley's phrase to me, "coercive progressivism" and I recognise the phenomenon.

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-rise-of-coercive-progressivism/

I find it "disinformation" that they use a term which implies fake news or conspiracy theory, but actually they include accurate information that doesn't suit their political agenda.

I wonder if they've checked themselves for disinformation? After all, labelling facts as "disinformation" is certainly an act of propagating disinformation.

Exactly my point there @SinnerBoy

I do find that name a little on the nose 😁

This could also be why sites like Spiked can’t support themselves with advertising - Brendan O'Neill has frequently stated that advertisers and advertising agencies won’t work with Spiked and something like GDI putting Spiked on a widely distributed disinformation list sounds very possible if GDI has seen fit to put sites like Unherd on such a list.

I'm sure. If they can't cope with the very measured Kathleen Stock then O' Neill's pithy writing must have them practically self combusting.

Hadn't seen this, really interesting. Here's an article in the press gazette:
https://pressgazette.co.uk/marketing/anti-trans-narratives-unherd-advertising-blacklist-global-disinformation-index/

Under its own rules GDI targets “highly adversarial” content about at-risk groups, science and democracy which it believes could cause harm. Such information must, it says, “have the intent to mislead”.

GDI meanwhile sees its role as countering the spread of low-quality content online, which proliferates because of an online ecosystem that targets advertising against readers, whatever website they land on, via programmatic systems.

It looks like GDI is trying to take on an OFCOM like role on the Internet.

Unherd is another of Paul Marshall's outlets (as is GBNews) so I'm not surprised at all there are concerns about whether it's promoting disinformation.

The article authors could always use another more reputable outlet to publish their content.

To get that, I googled "unherd global disinformation" and clicked on news. The list of unherd articles it served me would chime with disinformation. Articles like "Absolute victory over Russia isn't possible"; "A heatwave isn't the end of the world"; "The battle to control America's minds: Washington is waging an information war"; "The censorship industrial complex's new target: Gamers"; "Who controls the Covid 19 narrative?"; "Moderna is spying on you"; "The new world war on free speech"; "Irelands Elites are rewriting the past" etc etc etc

Very emotive titles on topics that attract conspiracy theorists.

Very emotive titles on topics that attract conspiracy theorists.

Yes they attract conspiracy theorists but that's because these are some of the most important and contentious topics of our time. There is no "right answer" on how we deal with Russia or climate change or pandemics. There has to be free flowing debate and we have to allow space for uncomfortable opinions and truths. Censoring an outlet like Unherd will only fan the flames of conspiracy theorists who will move to other, far less credible and reputable sources.

If you scroll down the Guardian or the New York Times websites you'll see headlines that are just as emotive, just coming from a different viewpoint. If you're going to argue against click baity headlines then you have to apply the same rule to everyone.

"Emotive titles" are how you attract clicks though. Part of me wishes that the current media world wasn't so dependant on clickbait, grabbing peoples attentions as fast as possible but it is. There are 1000s of stories competing for peoples attention at once and peoples attention span is growing ever shorter. So it isn't fair to say that one half can have all the emotion and doom mongering they like whilst the other has to have long, dry academic titles.

Sure, you can see it like that.
I think Paul Marshall has an agenda though.
https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/ideas/media/65415/the-marshall-plan-paul-marshall-gb-news

https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/ideas/media/65007/paul-marshalls-hateful-likes-make-him-unfit-to-be-a-media-mogul

I don't doubt this Paul Marshall is a highly unsavoury character but surely the problem is individual, extremely wealthy men having such power over the news. I don't see how censoring online discourse is going to fix that problem.

@AdamRyan Thanks for letting me know that Unherd is funded by Paul Marshall. Doesn't this make the influence of GDI worse though? Unherd can withstand the loss of advertising revenue because of PM. Other platforms that are advancing the truth may not be so fortunate and it may be a truth that you want to hear.

All the Internet advertising is automated. It isn't "censoring" for an organisation to advise that companies may not want to be associated with sites pushing disinformation.

As well as "free speech" the openness of the Internet allows advertisers to decide where they want to spend their money. That's good I think.

Sorry, I don't understand? You can still subscribe to Unherd if you want

I'm willing to bet Pink News isn't on the GDI black list despite being incredibly emotive, clickbaity and at times knowingly printing inaccurate things (see the Julie Bindel apology/settlement).

Jesus, you cam't know that articles are "spreading disinformation" just because of titles like that.

"Absolute Victory Over Russia Is Impossible" seems to you to be some sort of conspiracy theory topic? It's an opinion, obviously, but not a bizarre one. Unherd has a lot of differernt writers, and they certainly don't all take the same approach to issues. Their mandate was to publish writers not getting much time in the mainstream media, writing on hot topics, so they are of course going to skew to controversies.

And FWIW, Media Bias/Fact Check rates it center-right, Mostly factual. You might compare that to The Guardian, which is rated center-left, mixed (one step down from mostly factual.) All Sides rated Unherd as Center, rather than center right, in the most recent year.

*All the Internet advertising is automated. It isn't "censoring" for an organisation to advise that companies may not want to be associated with sites pushing disinformation.

As well as "free speech" the openness of the Internet allows advertisers to decide where they want to spend their money. That's good I think.*

But this is not the main aim of the GDI. The GDI's mission statement is "defunding disinformation" i.e. cutting off revenue streams (in this case advertising) from online sources they don't like.

Given that the majority of news is ad funded this is a form of (albeit less overt) censorship. The only reason Unherd is relatively unaffected is because it's not primarily ad funded. If the GDI put the Guardian on its "exclusion list" I imagine it wouldn't survive the week.

Even then you might be able to argue they are doing a useful service until you realise they are using the word "disinformation" to apply to anything and anyone they deem "harmful". Including, apparently, information that is "factual but harmful". That's a massive overreach and will lead to online news sources effectively self-censoring in order to not lose their ad revenue.

Bad Media doing the Irregular Verb thing! Is it time for this GIF?

Well this is the downside of the Internet isn't it.
Advertising is automated, advertisers are not going to want their brand associated with certain websites or content. Identifying all the websites so they can avoid them is a big job that all the companies will need doing so I'm not surprised it's been outsourced.

You might not like it but noone controls the Internet so there is nothing you can do about it really.

One could argue that traditional media "self censors" to avoid sanctions from Ofcom.

Very emotive titles and general content are a sign of disinformation.

https://commission.europa.eu/strategy-and-policy/coronavirus-response/fighting-disinformation/identifying-conspiracy-theories_en

The titles I shared relate to well known conspiracy theories. E.g. during covid there was a conspiracy theory that the vaccines were injecting nanobots into people to enable government surveillance. The title of the article "Moderna is spying on you" is very clearly designed to attract people who believe that conspiracy theory.

These are not particularly more emotive than headlines in other media Adam. You are seriously grasping at straws here and making yourself look silly.

Given the way you think lining any media source, even remotely, to someone you consider a bad actor makes it suspect, it is bizarre that you can't see why an organization like this trying to divert funding away from political ideas is dislikes is a problem.

OFCOM is not a private company with a private political agenda.

ANd FWIW< the article about Moderna is about precisely what it says it is about - it is about how the company is monitoring online discussions and media content about their vaccines, and how and why they are labeling some of it disinformation, whether that is legitimate or self-interested, and their lobbying in terms of policy questions on vaccination and regulation of pharmaceuticals.

I really have to wonder why you are so keen to make sure that kind of discussion isn't seen by the public, because it seems like a consistent theme from you.

And just to note, because this is important:

Having a cough is "a sign" of TB. But to say someone has TB, they need to have the TB bactirium in your body. Lots of people cough without it being caused by TB.

Having titles even that are actually a emotive, rather than just in your imagination, still doesn't mean something is disinformation. You need to engage the content to see.