Who Funds the Defunders? A Closer Look at the Global Disinformation Index
6th February 2026
Shortly before Christmas, the U.S. State Department slapped visa sanctions on five individuals whom it described as being agents of a “global censorship-industrial complex” bent on restricting the freedom of speech of Americans. The headliner of the sanctions list was, of course, Thierry Breton, the former EU internal market commissioner, who spearheaded efforts to enforce the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA) during the last years of his tenure in the Commission. But the directors of three organizations allegedly involved in censorship activities were also sanctioned: HateAid, the Global Disinformation Index, and the Center for Countering Digital Hate.
As discussed in my recent portrait of HateAid, the German organization is directly integrated into the DSA censorship system as a so-called trusted flagger of allegedly illegal or harmful online content. Under the DSA, online platforms and search engines are required to give priority treatment to the notifications of ‘trusted flaggers’ precisely because they have been certified as ‘trusted’ by EU member state governments—in this case, the German government.
But even though it does not have ‘trusted flagger’ status, another of the organizations targeted by the U.S. sanctions has likewise been a major player in the EU’s efforts to ‘regulate’ online speech, which in fact began many years before the passage of the DSA. Moreover, it, too, has important, if largely unclarified, ties to Germany. The organization in question is the Global Disinformation Index (GDI), whose executive director and best-known figure, Clare Melford, was placed on the sanctions list.