Republicans are framing a new Disinformation Governance Board within the Biden administration as a threat to censor conservative speech.
The Department of Homeland Security announced the creation of the board on Wednesday to coordinate the federal government’s activities related to countering disinformation, with an immediate focus on unauthorized migration to the United States and the Russia-Ukraine crisis.
The board will be led by Nina Jankowicz, a former disinformation fellow at the Wilson Center and adviser to the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry, who has a history of controversial and misleading statements.
The conception of disinformation has become a controversial and polarizing matter. Liberals say disinformation, meaning false information spread deliberately and covertly, is a threat to democracy. Conservatives, though, increasingly say that the threat of disinformation is wrongly used as a cover to censor them.
“It can only be assumed that the sole purpose of this new Disinformation Governance Board will be to marshal the power of the federal government to censor conservative and dissenting speech,” Republican Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri said in a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Thursday. “This is dangerous and un-American.”
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Republicans are concerned that the board could be used to police speech.
“Homeland security should focus on securing the homeland and protecting Americans, not on trying to create the embryo of a Ministry of Truth,” GOP Rep. Ken Buck of Colorado told the Washington Examiner.
Republicans are also concerned about a February bulletin from the Department of Homeland Security saying the federal government plans to work with public and private sector partners, including Big Tech companies, to reduce the “proliferation of false or misleading narratives, which sow discord or undermine public trust in U.S. government institutions.”
Homeland Security defines disinformation as information “deliberately created to mislead, harm, or manipulate a person, social group, organization, or country,” while misinformation is “false, but not created or shared with the intention of causing harm.”
The GOP is also worried about the federal government and the DHS being distracted from the border crisis.
“The Biden administration is creating yet another distraction that will divert Department of Homeland Security resources away from our southern border,” Republican Rep. Greg Steube of Florida told the Washington Examiner.
“Yet, DHS somehow found enough resources to create a Climate Change Action Plan, Equity Task Force, and now a Disinformation Governance Board. This is a mismanagement of taxpayer dollars at best. The American people want our southern border secured immediately,” Steube said.
Some liberals have also expressed discomfort at the possibility of the government creating a disinformation board.
“I’m gonna go out on a limb here and gently suggest that having a Disinformation Governance Board operating out of the Department of Homeland Security is not exactly a reassuring thought,” said Shadi Hamid, a senior fellow of foreign policy at the Brookings Institution, a left of center think tank.
“How is this even up for debate? The government should not be involved in deciding what is true and false,” Hamid added.
Yet Glenn Gerstell, former general counsel for the National Security Agency and now a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said that fears about the board are overblown.
“There’s no indication at all so far that the disinformation board wants to remove any information, particularly from Americans, and this is highly unlikely given the First Amendment,” said Gerstell.
“Their focus is on combating foreign disinformation, I think, by giving citizens accurate information and correcting the record,” said Gerstell, who focused on foreign disinformation while in the government.
Gerstell pointed to a 2020 bipartisan report that disclosed Russia sought to intervene in the 2016 presidential election and noted that members of both parties support addressing such interventions.
“The alternative is to throw up our hands and say disinformation is so politically sensitive that we do nothing despite Americans being awash in harmful disinformation that is bad for our country. That’s not what people want,” Gerstell added.
Social media companies, which have faced intense scrutiny related to accusations that they have promoted the spread of disinformation, could welcome the government’s intervention.
“Nina Jankowicz is a top-notch researcher on information integrity, and I’m glad she’s been put in this role,” said Katie Harbath, a former Facebook public policy director.
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“To fight misinformation and disinformation well, we need the government, civil society, and tech companies working together. This effort seems like another good step by the government to do its part,“ said Harbath.
