Editorial policy

Conflicts of interest

By Ben Smith, Editor

DEPLOY’s editorial independence policy. How commercial relationships are disclosed, how conflicts are handled when they arise, and the current state of any relationships requiring disclosure.

Editorial independence policy

Coverage decisions, cohort inclusion, verification-status calls, and cap-flag framing on DEPLOY are made on editorial grounds. No commercial relationship modifies the framework’s output on a specific entity. The same source-quality tier rubric, confidence-tier derivation, and re-verify trigger logic apply uniformly. The framework is documented at /methodology; the day-to-day workflow at /editorial-process; funding state at /funding.

The independence policy is structural, not just aspirational. Records on DEPLOY are append-only where editorially load- bearing: incidents + status events + verifications are written once and corrected via new status events, not silent edits. Corrections appear publicly at /corrections. The framework cannot quietly soften an unfavorable record on behalf of a commercial relationship; the audit trail is the discipline.

What counts as a conflict

A conflict, for DEPLOY, is any relationship that creates a material interest in how the framework treats a specific entity. Concrete examples that would require disclosure:

• Paid relationships: sponsorships, placements, affiliate arrangements, consulting fees, advisory retainers paid by an entity on the registry to anyone on DEPLOY’s editorial team.
• Equity positions: stock, options, warrants, tokens, or convertible instruments in a company on the registry held by anyone on DEPLOY’s editorial team.
• Advisory engagements: any formal advisor / board member / observer role at an entity on the registry.
• Joint ventures: any product, content, or commercial partnership with an entity on the registry that creates shared revenue or shared brand position.
• Family + personal: immediate family members holding any of the above with an entity on the registry.

Disclosure procedure

When a relationship of any of the above kinds exists or is contemplated, the procedure is:

1. Disclose on this page. The relationship is added to the “Current state” section below with the entity, the kind of relationship, the date it began, and (if applicable) the date it ended.
2. Disclose on the entity’s methodology surface. The methodology panel on the affected entity’s page carries the disclosure so a reader looking at the record sees it without needing to navigate elsewhere.
3. Recuse on direct decisions. The editor with the conflict does not make solo verification-status calls, cap-flag determinations, or coverage decisions about the affected entity. A second reviewer signs off on every change.
4. Preserve the audit trail. Pre-disclosure records about the entity are not retroactively reframed; the disclosure surfaces alongside the existing record. Append-only corrections continue to apply if pre-disclosure records turn out to need correction.

The disclosure procedure is the structural protection. A relationship can exist without compromising the framework if it is disclosed, accompanied by a second reviewer on direct decisions, and preserved in the audit trail. An undisclosed relationship would compromise the framework regardless of the relationship’s actual influence; transparency is what keeps editorial independence intact.

Current state

As of 2026-06-04:

• No paid relationships with any entity on the DEPLOY registry.
• No equity positions in any entity on the DEPLOY registry.
• No advisory engagements with any entity on the DEPLOY registry.
• No joint ventures, sponsorships, or affiliate arrangements with any entity on the DEPLOY registry.
• No immediate-family relationships requiring disclosure.

This page is updated when the current state changes. The page version is dated; the funding-state page at /funding carries the same disclosure for cross-reference.

Contact

If you believe a conflict exists that DEPLOY has not disclosed, email corrections@deploy.report with supporting documentation. Submissions are reviewed against the same source-quality discipline that applies to every other record on the registry.

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