Billionaires launching media investment firm to fight disinformation
Billionaires George Soros and Reid Hoffman are joining forces with other investors forming US media investment company Good Information Inc that will support media fighting disinformation. The announcement comes timely for the intense ongoing discussions about social media´s responsibilities in combating disinformation.
The company is presented as “a civic incubator that invests in new business models and smart solutions to counter disinformation where it spreads by increasing the flow of good information online.”
”Good Information Inc. will invest in and partner with media companies and platforms that center the communities they serve, their interests, and their media consumption habits in their reporting and their content distribution strategies.”
SOCIAL MEDIA REGULATION
The company in a mission statement says:” We believe there is an urgent need for regulation of social media platforms, as well as increased investment in new models that place a higher value on serving communities truth over clickbait and protecting democracy over profits.”
”America is currently in the throes of a disinformation epidemic that is threatening public health, social trust and democracy around the world. Good Information Inc. believes there is un-met audience demand for fact-based information, especially in local markets that have lost many of their legacy local news sources in recent years, and among audiences that are being left behind by evolving media business models” Good Information says in a press release.
INFORMATION SILOS
“With a multi-million dollar Series Seed investment led by Reid Hoffman and joined by investors Ken and Jen Duda, Incite, and George Soros, Good Information Inc. plans to invest in, incubate and scale new business models and smart distribution strategies that are capable of breaking through echo chambers and information silos to reach consumers with trusted information.”
CEO and co-founder of Good Information is Tara McGowan, a political strategist with clear connections to the Democratic party and a journalist.
“Good information that upholds the truth, common sense and shared values of a society is the lifeblood of democracy, and orchestrated disinformation — fueled and amplified by bias-driven algorithms — is its greatest threat”, she said in a statement.
ERODING TRUST
“The disinformation crisis we are facing in America today is increasing polarization and eroding our trust in each other, which is having a corrosive effect on our democracy, jeopardizing public health and destabilizing our economy. This is no longer a political dispute about the truth, but the direct result of unregulated business models that are putting whole communities around the world at risk, and putting democracy around the world in peril.”
Reid Hoffman is an internet entrepreneur and venture capitalist mostly known as co-founder and executive chairman of LinkedIn that was sold to Microsoft a few years ago. George Soros, Hungarian-born American investor and philanthropist, is founder of Open Society Foundations that in various forms supports freedom of expression.
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