Causes.com
| 4.29.22
Biden Admin Creates 'Disinformation Governance Board' Within Dept. of Homeland Security - Are You In Favor?
Do you support or oppose the Biden admin creating a Disinformation Governance Board?
What’s the story?
- The Biden administration announced this week that it is creating a Disinformation Governance Board within the Dept. of Homeland Security (DHS) that will be tasked with combating online disinformation. Critics have derided the move as governmental overreach reminiscent of the “Ministry of Truth” in George Orwell’s dystopian novel 1984.
- Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas told lawmakers on Wednesday at a congressional budget hearing that his agency will be creating the board and explained that it will be primarily focused on disinformation from Russia and misinformation aimed at migrants at the Southern border.
- The agency told the AP in a statement, “The spread of disinformation can affect border security, Americans’ safety during disasters, and public trust in our democratic institutions.”
Who will lead the disinformation board?
- The disinformation board will be led by Nina Jankowicz, who was a disinformation fellow at the Wilson Center, advised the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry through the Fulbright Public Policy Fellowship, and wrote two books about disinformation.
- Some of Jankowicz’s past views have drawn scrutiny since her announcement, including comments she made to the AP suggesting that the story about Hunter Biden’s laptop should be viewed as “a Trump campaign product” and sent tweets suggesting that it was part of an influence campaign by Russia. That claim was rejected at the time by Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe. Hunter Biden’s laptop has since been authenticated by numerous media outlets, most recently by The New York Times and The Washington Post. Hunter Biden is under investigation by a federal prosecutor due to his overseas business dealings and tax affairs.
- Additionally, Jankowicz tweeted praise for a discussion about misinformation given by Christopher Steele, who produced the dossier that sparked the investigation into alleged collusion between then-candidate Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and Russia during the 2016 election.
- Many of the claims in the dossier were later debunked by Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe and it has since led to a new special counsel investigation. The dossier’s use by FBI agents in justifying the Trump investigation prompted a rebuke by DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz over their inaccuracies and omissions in surveillance applications that relied upon the dossier. That eventually led to the appointment of Special Counsel John Durham who is leading an ongoing probe into the origins of the Russia collusion narrative.
- Information disseminated on social media platforms would likely fall under the purview of the newly created disinformation board. Jankowicz recently opined on Elon Musk’s potential takeover of Twitter in an interview with NPR and said the following about the debate between free speech and censorship of what is deemed to be abusive or inappropriate content on social media platforms:
“I shudder to think about if free speech absolutists were taking over more platforms, what that would look like for the marginalized communities all around the world, which are already shouldering so much of this abuse, disproportionate amounts of this abuse, and retraumatizing themselves as they try to protect themselves from it, you know, reporting, blocking et cetera. We need the platforms to do more, and we frankly need law enforcement and our legislatures to do more as well.”
What they’re saying
- When asked about the creation of the disinformation board and Jankowicz’s appointment to lead it, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki had few specifics at a press briefing on Thursday but said at a briefing on Friday that DHS handles its own personnel decisions and added:
“Well, here’s what the board is going to do, which I think is of particular interest — again, a continuation of the work of the former President. So for anyone who’s critical of it, I didn’t hear them being critical of the work under the former President, which is just interesting to note contextually. But in the fact sheet that they put out, what they noted yesterday — what they noted in there is that this is meant to — one, the first bullet was about protecting privacy, civil rights, and civil liberties, and the First Amendment. They said the primary mission is to establish best practices to ensure that efforts to understand and respond to disinformation are done in ways that protect privacy, civil rights, and civil liberties.”
- Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Ranking Member Rob Portman (R-OH) expressed concern about the Biden administration’s Disinformation Governance Board in the following statement:
“I am deeply concerned by the administration’s decision to create a Disinformation Governance Board at the Department of Homeland Security. As the author of the bipartisan law that established the Global Engagement Center to combat the constantly evolving threat of foreign propaganda and disinformation abroad, I do not believe that the United States government should turn the tools that we have used to assist our allies counter foreign adversaries onto the American people. Our focus should be on bad actors like Russia and China, not our own citizens.”
- Former congresswoman and 2020 Democratic presidential nominee Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) weighed in on the disinformation board’s creation and tweeted:
“Every dictatorship has a propaganda arm ― a 'Ministry of Truth.' The Biden Administration has now formally joined the ranks of such dictatorships with their creation of the so-called 'Disinformation Governance Board.'”
— Eric Revell
(Photo Credit: Miller Center via Flickr / Creative Commons)
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Yes, disinformation science has been deployed by the putin to foment unrest and distrust in western democracies for around ten years now. The tactic is to provide a firehose of alternate facts, even alternate facts the purport to prove different sides of issues. 'Alternate' facts are are actually not facts at all, but rather somewhat plausible conclusions derived from very selective cherry picked facts or assertions based on known often unconscious biases that people carry and hold to be truths.
The 'alternate' facts tske time and effort to debunk, and when debunked a few more 'alternate' facts are sprayed from the firehose. This keeps the people confused, not knowing what is true and what is not and they tend to accept as facts those 'alternative' facts that most align with their unconscious biases; because the feel right and therefore must be truth.
The Russians exploited the openness of Western democracies and social media with commenters posing as normal Americans and used several outlets and strategically placed servers in a coordinated program to assure maximum penetration and spread of their disinformation. When this was discovered by military cyber warriors, Russia installed central control servers in Russian owned company offices inside the US which limits military cyber security ability to monitor their traffic.
The Republican run Senate intelligence committee, while the trump was in office, found thst Russia did repurpose their disinformation campsign in 2026 for the purpose of swaying public opinion to favor the trump.
The truly sad thing is that political strategists for the Republicsn Cartel saw his effective the Russusn disinformation campaign was and began to adapt these techniques for political expediency - and this very much contributes to the unprecedented divisiveness of our country.
There csn be no real basis for debate, compromise or collaboration when both sides truly believe in a different set of facts.
Even worse is the Republican Cartel's willful adaptation of Russian didinfirmstion when it can be heightened and focused to discredit their political enemy with whom they declared political against. They see needing to win the 'war' as justifying their tactics to secure winning an unearned re-election because it is a 'war'.
The politicians have indemnified themselves from liability judgements from people harmed by their words abd actions. The right wing entertainment news propaganda outlets can be liability-sued for damages that people suffer as a consequence of willfully, knowingly promoting disinformation as Dominion Voting Systems has done in their deformation lawsuits filed agsinst several of the trump's lawyers as well as Tucker Carlson. Fox News defense argued that Tucker Carlson was sn entertainer (and not a news person) that no rational person would take seriosly. (to which I say, 'so what', even 'irrational' true believers can be harmed or do harm to others).
Alex Jones is facing a potentially huge award to the parents of the students murdered their for his clsim thst the whole thing was staged.
I think this is the most direct path to dealing with harmful disinformation - liability sue the purveyors of intentional disinformation and tske away whatever they hoped to gain.
The focus should be on fact-checking and providing provenance of information and videos so we know the source, if it’s been modified and if so how.
Otherwise Big Tech is left to develop their own, individual standards by company, and implement without external review.
Should also centralize work currently done in various branches of the government some which maybe classified in such a way that can be publicly disclosed. Public should be aware of:
1) PROVENANCE: Are you looking at the original account, article, or piece of content?
2) SOURCE: Who created the account or article, or captured the original piece of content?
3) DATE: When was it created?
4) LOCATION: Where was the account established, the website created, or piece of content captured?
5) MOTIVATION: Why was the account established, the website created, or the piece of content captured?
6) Sources corroborating the information
7) Bias rating from Rand Corporation. Media Bias ratings that identify how factual the source is, and whether it's center, left or right leaning.
https://researchguides.journalism.cuny.edu/factchecking-verification/UGC-verification
https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/rand-corporation/
I truly don't understand some of y'all's position on this. You know that this is a partisan board to discredit and control what Americans are allowed to say and hear, don't you? Do you seriously not find this disturbing and dangerous? What may be "disinformation" to someone, may turn out to be fact. And then who is spreading disinformation? We already know that nearly everything that has been called disinforamtion, has later turned out to be true. So all they are doing is restricting any opposing views that do not favor them or their agenda.
Would you be "for this" if Republicans had developed this board? No. And as someone who is a conservative Republican, I can promise you that I would be staunchly opposed to this if it were my own party doing it. Because any suppression of speech, even those I strongly disagree with, has the right to say what they want. The only stipulation is if someone is making threats to physically harm someone. I am not talking about hurting their feelings! And there is no hate speech. Someone saying things to you that are hateful, can be blocked.
The American people are capable of deciding for themselves what the truth is. The moment you allow either party to start deciding for you what you are allowed to say, read, or hear, is the moment we are no longer a free country. What you accept, WILL come back to bite you in the ass. And when it does, you will realize that you chose to relinquish your rights, simply to silence the other side. Only this time, it will be you being silenced along with us.
A lot of this discussion seems to be tainted by a differing understanding of what ‘facts’ are what ‘disinformation’ is. It’s not as obvious as one might presume.I believe a better delineation may be needed for clarity.
I consider facts falling into three categories:
‘INVARIANT FACTS’ which are absolutely invariant, always provable and never changing assertions, such as the count of two things and three other things must always equate to five things in total.
’ACCEPTED FACTS’ which are absolutely true in almost every case, which cannot be disproven by other accepted facts and are broadly accepted by people qualified by experience or pertinence to pass judgement, such as the once ‘accepted fact’ that the entirety of the Universe was considered to be just the Milky Way Galaxy and that the Universe was eternal, despite some observations which didn’t seem to fit that narrative but couldn’t be proven to be more than observational error. Later, when better observations were possible, the few observations were proven to be real and new theories which explained both the past and new observations were developed. A new accepted fact evolved that the universe consists of hundred’s of billions of Galaxies much like the Milky Way. That’s how scientific ‘accepted facts’ evolve as more and better ‘invariant facts’ are discovered and proven.
‘Accepted facts’ in this context may seem to be some kind of deception or cheat, but they are absolutely essential in that they provide a common basis, a common narrative that correlates with most of what ‘is’ and provides a common basis from which to test alternatives that explains most of what ‘is’ as well as those observations which are not.
There is no way to debate different scientific theories without a common basis from which to assess them; just as there is no way to truly debate the validity of differing opinions without starting from a common narrative, even if the common narrative itself is the subject of the debate. And this alone, is the basis for most of this country’s current political polarization and divisiveness.
‘ALTERNATE FACTS’ are intentional distortions proffered by disinformation sources which appear to be plausible through reference to select invariant facts, select accepted facts or which appeal to the emotional biases that different people may, even unconsciously, carry with them to make assertions which can be proven to be untrue by available invariant facts or accepted facts. The issue is that many people accept alternative facts because they appeal to their emotion driven biases. When people draw conclusions from alternative facts and ignore the common narrative there is no starting point for any meaningful discussion or deliberation.
’COMMON SENSE’ is an oft used assertion of truth which can be very valid if that ‘common sense’ is grounded in the totality of pertinent facts and sound logic. I am not convinced that this is always true for all people who assert it. I have unknowingly fallen victim to my inherent biases even though I actively try to correct those that are based on limited experiences or emotive appeal. I had made a statement about the number of people who defraud social security disability provisions only to be corrected by someone’s whose career experience was based on the needs people with disabilities and convinced me that, while some people do scam the system, the majority of people that get this minimal assistance are in dire need of it. And I realized that I had fallen victim to my own biases and redoubled my efforts to avoid doing so again.
Disinformation deserves some better categorization as well and was well categorized in prior government descriptions:
’MAL-INFORMATION’ is the intentional use of alternate facts and disinformation science to confuse the public, foment divisiveness, or intentionally mislead the public for the benefit of the author or sponsor.
’DISINFORMATION’ is untrustworthy information that is knowingly propagated, spread and used for political or other opinion shaping purposes without being checked nor challenged by the recipient who may actually believe it.
Russia, the Putin and most autocracies author mal-information to support their internal political goals and their geo-political goals. They all discredit the fact-checked news sources as ‘fake-news’, use the disinformation technique of ‘projection’ to preemptively falsely accuse opponents of doing the things which they themselves are actually doing, demand abject loyalty to themselves and severely punish those who are not, conflate loyalty to themselves to be synonymous with loyalty to the country, and control the populace with a continuous stream of well designed mal-information.
The RNC has noticed how effective Russia’s disinformation has been and has repurposed much of it to politically discredit their political opponents. They are also continuing their own disinformation campaign for political expediency.
And their willingness to do so is terrifying
There's a difference between searching for Disinformation abroad and dealing with Disinformation at home here in the Good Ole USA.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/30/us/tucker-carlson-fox-news.html
From the article...
'He began seeking out stories, one friend observed, that were sometimes “really weird” and often inaccurate but tapped into viewers’ fears of a trampled-on American culture. He inveighed against Macy’s new line of hijabs, and devoted a segment to “Gypsy” refugees in a Pennsylvania town who Mr. Carlson said had left “streets covered — pardon us now, but it’s true — with human feces.” (It was not true: Local officials ultimately documented a single instance of a refugee child who had pulled down his pants outside because he couldn’t make it back home in time.) He cataloged, and magnified, overlooked instances of what he cast as growing discrimination against white Americans. Stories about the threat of immigration had long been a feature of Fox. But Mr. Carlson dialed up the intensity, expertly weaving tropes borrowed from the far right into a narrative that would come to define “Tucker Carlson Tonight”: falling birthrates among the native-born, big-city crime, lax immigration policies designed to forcibly alter American society — all engineered or encouraged by a “ruling class” desperate to censor public discussion of its own failures.'
This is just another way to shut the free speech down especially to Republicans.
Hunter Biden's laptop was considered to be disinformation and would have been banned by this group. DUH!!' Turns out is was true and those on the left were spreading misinformation. Solutions would have been better to let both side have their say and let the American people make up their own minds up. Later the truth would come out.
JUST THE FACTS!!!!!!
Yet another Biden/Goebbels office. As for her, YouTube says it all.
Elon Musk says he would reverse Twitter's Trump ban
where do you draw a line between free speech and dangerous lies? when a good third of humans don't seem to be able to discern fact from alternative fact you will have a perpetual state of chaos and this is significantly exacerbated by the power of social media platforms
maybe elon should focus on cars and tunnels? wealth doesn't make you an authority on all matters nor the right to impose your chaos on society?
simply 5 years of dumbkopf running amok has done significant damage to this world and you want to put him back on it?
i must say that is stupid.
We do not need a political arm of our Executive Branch like this "Ministry of Propoganda"! Further, the selection of "Karen" Jankowitz to head it up simply verifies the hypocrisy of the entire idea!
Dems are running scared as they want to control the narrative to the American people.
Free speech will return, despite their obviousattempts to control it.
This ''Misinformation Board'' is Orwellian! Imagine if Bush 43 or Trump proposed something like this. Leftists & the media would go ape-s--t & rightfully so! Impeach Mayorkas NOW.
Every American has the right to give their opinions and express their views on politics, religion, and moral issues without the encumbrance of a government controlled Disinformation Governance Board. Just as Pravda was the state run news organization of the USSR and only allowed the Communist view to be expressed, the same would happen here and would be the destruction of democracy and freedom of speech in this country. This is an extremely dangerous thing that Biden, who has sworn to defend the Constitution of the USA is doing.
The government is not the arbiter of truth.
Ronald Reagan made the first one, can't remember the date but he sent it to all networks and expected complete compliance and got it.
If it works Fox News (and therefor the GOP) will be out of business.
It's a real hoot that some are calling this "The Ministry Of Truth"(from "1984") since, in that novel, "The Ministry Of Truth" was the OPPOSITE of truth, and an organ of propaganda. Today's international media SWIRLS with untruths, "alternate facts", innuendo, smear tacticts, and other pieces of "information" that have no basis in fact, logic, reason, science, history, or reality. At one time, if some entity tried to deliver B.S., there were places like libraries or encyclopedias, or institutes of higher learning we could look to, to give us the skinny on what was, hopefully, the latest facts or truth of a thing, and not rely on yellow journalism; apparently, all that's been flipped on its head, and they that shout the loudest, or gets the most "public opinion" backing, gets the lead. It seems way past time to have an official "Snopes" to clear away the weeds of misinformation and lies, and pass all information through a crucible to remove fact from fiction. Since the proposal is in the early stages, if it ever comes to being at all, it would be interesting who, politically, would be for, or against it, and why...
I don't know about everyone else, but I am absolutely sick and tired of having to think critically, formulate my personal convictions, and conceive of my own thoughts.
I'm so thankful that the almighty federal Government (praise be!) is finally stepping up and letting me know what the correct, approved truth is, and more importantly, what is false! For if something is false, that lets me know that I don't have to question it! What a relief!
This is exactly what China does to its Citizens. The Government deciding what disinformation is. What could possibly go wrong...because everything else they controls runs so well...right.
This is the ultimate fear of a partisan attempt to destroy free speech and should not be allowed.
NO, we do not need another government agency to feed and certainly not one that would be led by the proposed. Especially when we have decades old agencies today that were once the gold standard for freedom and justice that have become politicized.
We must stop the soread of disinformation.
we should restore the fairness in media act.
we also should tri any person who conspired with January 6th protest. All senators who conspired with trump and co should be relieved of their jobs immediately and cast out of washington.
This administration needs to stop infringing on our constitutional rights. The ONLY disinformation is being conducted by the Left. They are no better than Putin or Xi. It's time for these actors to be removed from office and preferably our country.
Disinformation is literally killing people!
Every department within the government requires a "watch dog" of sorts. A committee comprised of open minded, common dense individuals from both sexes before anything can be truly accomplished. I'm all for this as long as the perpetrators are punished to the furthest extent of the law.
Been out of towns...seems I missed a lot!
There has been a need for a disinformation board since the evolution of the internet. Back in the 1970s universities and colleges were in discussions in ethics classes about the very subject. It is about time such a thing exists. There should be legislation as well on disinformation and propaganda peddlers. The GOP wants to focus on bad actors like Russia and China while dishing up their own propaganda on FOX news. It's really time to hold Murdock accountable and get this NON-journalist rag off the aire.