This has become ever more important with the growth of online media, as well as the mass disinformation campaigns surrounding global events such as the pandemic. As a result, the GDI aims to grow to meet this expanding challenge by providing risk ratings to flag potential disinformation risks of a news domain - using metadata and other factors.

It focuses predominantly on people who spread disinformation for financial gain, aiming to remove its financial incentives. Currently, brands unknowingly provide up to a quarter of a billion dollars every year to disinformation sites though running ads on them. To counter this, the GDI gives ad tech companies a neutral and transparent assessment to help them direct their advert spending.

It's funded by a range of commercial, philanthropic, and governmental sources, with no funding source permitted to exceed 1/3 of the GDI's funding to ensure neutrality. Currently, the GDI is supported by organisations including the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Luminate, Catena Foundation, and Argosy Foundation so that it can continue to meet the urgent need to combat dangerous disinformation.