US Billionaires Back Initiatives To Counter Disinformation

US media report­ed last month on the cre­ation of Good Infor­ma­tion Inc., a new pub­lic ben­e­fit cor­po­ra­tion backed by sev­er­al US bil­lion­aires, to fund new media com­pa­nies and efforts that tack­le dis­in­for­ma­tion. Accord­ing to an Axios report, the project leader promis­es that fund­ing could include “invest­ments in enti­ties across the polit­i­cal spectrum”:

Octo­ber 26, 2021 A new pub­lic ben­e­fit cor­po­ra­tion backed by bil­lion­aires Reid Hoff­man, George Soros, and oth­ers is launch­ing Tues­day to fund new media com­pa­nies and efforts that tack­le dis­in­for­ma­tion.  Why it mat­ters: Good Infor­ma­tion Inc. aims to fund and scale busi­ness­es that cut through echo cham­bers with fact-based infor­ma­tion. As part of its mis­sion, it plans to invest in local news com­pa­nies.  The group will be led by Tara McGowan, a for­mer Demo­c­ra­t­ic strate­gist who pre­vi­ous­ly ran a pro­gres­sive non-prof­it called ACRONYM. […] Details: Good Infor­ma­tion is launch­ing with a mul­ti-mil­lion seed invest­ment led by Hoff­man and joined by investors Ken and Jen Duda, Incite, and George Soros. […] Although backed and launched by pro­gres­sives, McGowan says the group could make invest­ments in enti­ties across the polit­i­cal spec­trum so long as their edi­to­r­i­al stan­dards sup­port fact-based information.

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The report notes that Good Infor­ma­tion Inc. is the lat­est exam­ple of invest­ments by US bil­lion­aires tar­get­ing dis­in­for­ma­tion, including:

• Craig New­mark, the founder of CraigsList, has invest­ed mil­lions to sup­port fac­tu­al report­ing through his non-prof­it, Craig New­mark Phil­an­thropies.

• Steve Ballmer, the for­mer Microsoft CEO, found­ed USAFacts, a non-prof­it designed to make accu­rate data acces­si­ble and under­stand­able, in 2017.

• Through her invest­ment group, Emer­son Col­lec­tive, Lau­rene Pow­ell Jobs has invest­ed in sev­er­al jour­nal­ism orga­ni­za­tions, includ­ing Axios.