Nina Jankowicz’s new book, “How to Be an Online Woman,” documents the hardships she and other women have faced from mean and other bad guys. She’s now at the center of a new storm of criticism, this time after being appointed to lead an advisory panel at the Department of Homeland Security on the threat of disinformation.
The creation of a council, announced last week, has become a partisan battle over disinformation itself – and the role of government, if any, in controlling misinformation. when malicious and even violent online.
Within hours of the announcement, Republican lawmakers began fighting the Orwellian board, accusing the Biden administration of creating a “Department of Truth” to police people’s thoughts. Two professors write an opinion column in The Wall Street Journal note that the abbreviation for the new Information Administration was just “a letter from the KGB,” the Soviet security agency.
Alejandro N. Mayorkas, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, took precautions. In a television interview on CNN on Sunday, he stressed that the new board is a small group, that it has no authority or operational capacity, and that it will not spy on Americans.
“We in the Department of Homeland Security do not monitor American citizens,” he said.
Mr Mayorkas’ reassurance failed to quell the outcry, underscoring how the partisan disinformation debate has become. In response to a series of questions about the board on Monday, the White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, said it represented a continuation of the work that the Department’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency had begun. beginning in 2020, under the previous administration.
Its focus is on coordinating the department’s response to the potential effects of disinformation threats – including the influence of foreign elections, such as that of Russia in 2016 and again in in 2020; efforts by smugglers to encourage migrants to cross the border; and online posts can incite extremist attacks. Ms. Psaki did not elaborate on how the department would determine what constitutes extremist content online. She said the board will review its findings publicly on misinformation, although “much of this work is really about work that people may not see every day that the Department of Homeland Security doesn’t see.” Domestic is doing.”
Many of the board’s critics have scoured Ms. Jankowicz’s past statements, online and offline, accusing her of being hostile to conservative views. They suggested – without basis – that she would block legally protected speech using partisan calculus.
Two Republican members who rank on the House committees on intelligence and homeland security – Michael R. Turner of Ohio and John Katko of New York – cited recent comments she made. the laptops about Hunter Biden, the president’s son and about Elon Musk bid to buy Twitter as evidence of bias.
Ms. Jankowicz, 33, has suggested in her book and in public statements that immodest and inappropriate online content can mask violence and other illegal acts when offline – types of threats the board has created to monitor. Her book cites research on toxic reactions that prominent women have faced, including Vice President Kamala Harris after being nominated in 2020.
Ms. Jankowicz has called on social media companies and law enforcement agencies to take tougher action against online abuse. Such views have raised the alarm that governments should not warn against online content; it has also spurred Mr. Musk, who has said he wants to buy Twitter to free users from woeful restrictions that, in his view, violate freedom of expression.
“I shudder to think, if libertarians take over more platforms, what that will be like for marginalized communities around the world, which already suffer a lot of this abuse, this amount of abuse is disproportionate,” Ms. Jankowicz told NPR in an interview last week about her new book, which addresses people experiencing online attacks, especially women and people of color.
One tweet she sent, using part of that quote, quoted by Mr. Turner and Mr. Katko in their letter to Mr. Mayorkas. The note asks for “all documents and communications” on the establishment of the board and the appointment of Ms. Jankowicz as chief executive officer of the board.
The board had quietly started working two months ago, being staffed part-time by officials from other parts of the large division. The Department of Homeland Security made the decision to form the board last year after completing a study over the summer that recommended setting up a group to consider questions about privacy and civil liberties. for online content, according to John Cohen, former acting head of the department’s intelligence branch.
“And make sure that when parts of the department do that analysis, they’re operating in a way that’s consistent with their authorities,” Cohen, who left management last month, said in a statement. an interview.
Mr. Cohen has denied claims that the group will control language online.
“It’s not a big room with feeds from Facebook and Twitter,” Cohen said. “It looks at policy issues, it looks at best practices, it looks at academic research related to how disinformation affects the threat environment.”
After studying policy questions, the board will then submit guidance to the Secretary of Homeland Security on how various agencies should conduct analysis of online content while protecting human rights. American civil liberties and the extent to which the results of that analysis were widely shared.
Based on statement Announced on Monday, the ministry said the board would monitor “misinformation spread by foreign countries such as Russia, China and Iran, or other adversaries such as criminal organizations.” transnational and human trafficking organizations”. The statement also cited misinformation that can spread during natural disasters, such as misinformation about the safety of drinking water during Hurricane Sandy in 2012.
This is not the first time the Department of Homeland Security has identified disinformation as a threat facing the homeland. The Department engaged with the FBI in releasing terrorist bulletins warning that lies about the 2020 election and the Capitol riots on January 6, 2021, could involve domestic extremists.
Mr Mayorkas has defended Ms Jankowicz, calling her “a renowned expert” who is “excellently qualified” to advise the department on security threats germinating in a wild atmosphere online. At the same time, he admitted to mishandling the board’s announcement – made in a simple press statement last week.
“I think we could have done a better job of communicating what it does and doesn’t do,” he told CNN.
Ms. Jankowicz has been a frequent commentator on disinformation for many years. She has worked for the National Institute for Democracy, a branch of the National Foundation for Democracy that promotes democratic governance abroad, and is a member of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington.
As a Fulbright member, she worked as an adviser to the Ukrainian government in 2017. Her 2020 book, “How to Lose the Information War: Russia, Fake News, and the Future of Conflict” , focusing on Russia’s information weaponization. It warns that governments are ill-prepared and ill-equipped to combat disinformation.
A quote posted on her story on the Wilson Center’s website highlights the challenges facing disinformation combatants.
“Disinformation is not a partisan issue; it is a democracy and it will take cooperation – cross-party, interagency, cross-governmental and cross-border – to defeat,” it said.
