Media

George Soros Teams Up With Billionaire Who Bankrolled Fake Russian Bots In Alabama To Launch Anti-Disinformation Media Venture

Phillip Faraone/Getty Images for WIRED25

Daily Caller News Foundation logo
Andrew Kerr Investigative Reporter
Font Size:

Liberal tech billionaire Reid Hoffman, a funder of numerous disinformation projects, is backing a new media venture launched Tuesday that seeks to combat disinformation, according to a report.

Hoffman, the founder of LinkedIn, joined ranks with financier George Soros to fund Good Information Inc., which will “fund and scale businesses that cut through eco chambers with fact-based information,” Axios reported.

The move comes after Hoffman apologized in December 2018 for bankrolling what he called a “highly disturbing” effort that spread disinformation in the Alabama special election the year prior that resulted in Democrat Doug Jones narrowly defeating Republican Roy Moore for a seat in the Senate.

The disinformation project, spearheaded by the tech firm New Knowledge, created fake online personas aimed at generating national news coverage that Russia favored Republicans over Democrats. (RELATED: Tech Billionaire Who Bankrolled Numerous Disinformation Projects Linked To $620,000 Donation To Fusion GPS’s Legal Fund)

Hoffman’s new anti-disinformation media venture will be led by Democratic strategist Tara McGowan, who previously ran the Hoffman-backed progressive nonprofit group ACRONYM.

McGowan told Axios that Good Information Inc. will invest in a variety of news entities across the political spectrum as long as they exhibit fact-based editorial standards.

“The information crisis we’re in is so much bigger than politics,” McGowan said.

Hoffman also backed American Engagement Technology, a group that published misleading Facebook ads designed to depress Republican voter turnout in the 2018 midterm elections, the Daily Caller News Foundation previously reported.

In addition, Hoffman contributed $620,000 to the legal fund for Fusion GPS, the opposition research firm behind the largely debunked Steele dossier, which the FBI used to advance its investigation into former President Donald Trump’s alleged ties to the Russian government.

George Soros, Founder and Chairman of the Open Society Foundations arrives for a meeting in Brussels, on April 27, 2017. (Photo by OLIVIER HOSLET/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)

ACRONYM, under McGowan’s leadership, funded the development of an application that was responsible for causing massive delays in reporting the results of the 2020 Iowa Democratic caucuses.

McGowan’s group also stated in its 2019 tax returns that it was the full owner of Courier Newsroom, a network of liberal local news outlets that, according to the media credibility watchdog group NewsGuard, failed “to meet several basic standards of credibility and transparency.”

Good Information Inc. will acquire Courier Newsroom from ACRONYM, Axios reported.

McGowan told Axios that she’s disclosing the identities of Good Information Inc.’s investors because “transparency is really important.”

ACRONYM, under McGowan’s leadership, received a Federal Election Commission complaint in 2020 that alleged the group wasn’t transparent about Courier Newsroom’s sources of funding. The complaint alleged that Courier Newsroom was effectively an arm of the Democratic party and as such should be stripped of its tax-exempt status.

While the FEC eventually dropped the complaint, McGowan acknowledged to Axios that she could have been more transparent about her group.

“If I could do things differently, I would have been more transparent,” McGowan said.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

PREMIUM ARTICLE: Subscribe To Keep Reading

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign Up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
BENEFITS READERS PASS PATRIOTS FOUNDERS
Daily and Breaking Newsletters
Daily Caller Shows
Ad Free Experience
Exclusive Articles
Custom Newsletters
Editor Daily Rundown
Behind The Scenes Coverage
Award Winning Documentaries
Patriot War Room
Patriot Live Chat
Exclusive Events
Gold Membership Card
Tucker Mug

What does Founders Club include?

Tucker Mug and Membership Card
Founders

Readers,

Instead of sucking up to the political and corporate powers that dominate America, The Daily Caller is fighting for you — our readers. We humbly ask you to consider joining us in this fight.

Now that millions of readers are rejecting the increasingly biased and even corrupt corporate media and joining us daily, there are powerful forces lined up to stop us: the old guard of the news media hopes to marginalize us; the big corporate ad agencies want to deprive us of revenue and put us out of business; senators threaten to have our reporters arrested for asking simple questions; the big tech platforms want to limit our ability to communicate with you; and the political party establishments feel threatened by our independence.

We don't complain -- we can't stand complainers -- but we do call it how we see it. We have a fight on our hands, and it's intense. We need your help to smash through the big tech, big media and big government blockade.

We're the insurgent outsiders for a reason: our deep-dive investigations hold the powerful to account. Our original videos undermine their narratives on a daily basis. Even our insistence on having fun infuriates them -- because we won’t bend the knee to political correctness.

One reason we stand apart is because we are not afraid to say we love America. We love her with every fiber of our being, and we think she's worth saving from today’s craziness.

Help us save her.

A second reason we stand out is the sheer number of honest responsible reporters we have helped train. We have trained so many solid reporters that they now hold prominent positions at publications across the political spectrum. Hear a rare reasonable voice at a place like CNN? There’s a good chance they were trained at Daily Caller. Same goes for the numerous Daily Caller alumni dominating the news coverage at outlets such as Fox News, Newsmax, Daily Wire and many others.

Simply put, America needs solid reporters fighting to tell the truth or we will never have honest elections or a fair system. We are working tirelessly to make that happen and we are making a difference.

Since 2010, The Daily Caller has grown immensely. We're in the halls of Congress. We're in the Oval Office. And we're in up to 20 million homes every single month. That's 20 million Americans like you who are impossible to ignore.

We can overcome the forces lined up against all of us. This is an important mission but we can’t do it unless you — the everyday Americans forgotten by the establishment — have our back.

Please consider becoming a Daily Caller Patriot today, and help us keep doing work that holds politicians, corporations and other leaders accountable. Help us thumb our noses at political correctness. Help us train a new generation of news reporters who will actually tell the truth. And help us remind Americans everywhere that there are millions of us who remain clear-eyed about our country's greatness.

In return for membership, Daily Caller Patriots will be able to read The Daily Caller without any of the ads that we have long used to support our mission. We know the ads drive you crazy. They drive us crazy too. But we need revenue to keep the fight going. If you join us, we will cut out the ads for you and put every Lincoln-headed cent we earn into amplifying our voice, training even more solid reporters, and giving you the ad-free experience and lightning fast website you deserve.

Patriots will also be eligible for Patriots Only content, newsletters, chats and live events with our reporters and editors. It's simple: welcome us into your lives, and we'll welcome you into ours.

We can save America together.

Become a Daily Caller Patriot today.

Signature

Neil Patel