Integrity Initiative in Hiding? Whitehall Launches Secret European ‘Disinformation Factory’

On 3rd April, Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO) minister Alan Duncan revealed his department’s ‘Counter Disinformation and Media Development Programme’ — which bankrolls the Institute for Statecraft and its Integrity Initiative subsidiary — was funding a new endeavour, Open Information Partnership (OIP).

The announcement, buried in a response to a written parliamentary question, was supremely light on detail — Duncan merely said the effort would “respond to manipulated information in the news, social media and across the public space”. Official fanfare was also unforthcoming — there was no accompanying press release, briefing document, or even mention of the launch by any government minister or department via social media channels.

Similarly, virtually no information can be found online about OIP, and the organisation’s spartan single-page official website offers scant insight, consisting almost entirely of a 300-word-long burst of corporate jargon — although the initiative is said to be “a diverse network of established organisations and individuals across Europe working in open, independent, fact-based reporting”, comprised of “NGOs, charities, academics, thinktanks, journalists, factcheckers and activists”.

“We joined together in response to the rising tide of manipulated information — in the news, on social media and across our public discourse — which we believe to be an existential threat to…