(Tony Sifert, Headline USA) In an appearance before the House Committee on Appropriations Wednesday, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas announced that the DHS had recently created a “Disinformation Governance Board” to monitor “the spread of mis- and dis-information” in advance of the 2022 midterms.
The ostensible purpose of the board is “to coordinate countering misinformation related to homeland security, focused specifically on irregular migration and Russia,” Politico reported.
The Board will be headed by Nina Jankowicz, a “disinformation fellow” at the Wilson Center who has also “advised the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry as part of the Fulbright Public Policy Fellowship.”
Jankowicz confirmed her new role on Twitter.
Cat’s out of the bag: here’s what I’ve been up to the past two months, and why I’ve been a bit quiet on here.
Honored to be serving in the Biden Administration @DHSgov and helping shape our counter-disinformation efforts. https://t.co/uN20vl7qqV pic.twitter.com/JEn4FqLdck
— Nina Jankowicz 🇺🇦🇺🇸 (@wiczipedia) April 27, 2022
“Honored to be serving in the Biden Administration @DHSgov and helping shape our counter-disinformation efforts,” Jankowicz wrote.
“A HUGE focus of our work, and indeed, one of the key reasons the Board was established, is to maintain the Dept’s committment to protecting free speech, privacy, civil rights, & civil liberties,” she continued.
But Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., was quick to point out that Jankowicz is anything but a champion of free speech, pointing to a recent NPR interview in which she argued that Elon Musk‘s takeover of Twitter would lead to speech-violence against women and minorities.
“The Biden Administration’s new anti-speech czar is apparently no fan of the @elonmusk Twitter acquisition,” Hawley wrote. “This is the person Joe Biden just put in charge of policing Americans’ speech.”
In her interview, Jankowicz claimed that “many of the free speech absolutists are often online trolls themselves, and/or they are wealthy white men who presumably have ample means to protect their personal safety.”
“I shudder to think about if free speech absolutists were taking over more platforms,” Jankowicz continued.
“What that would look like for the marginalized communities all around the world, which are already shouldering so much of this abuse . . . and retraumatizing themselves as they try to protect themselves from it.”
“We need the platforms to do more, and we frankly need law enforcement and our legislatures to do more as well,” she concluded.
The Biden Administration must have approved of her comments, because she’s now in charge of policing the speech of American citizens.
The DHS board will be headed by Nina Jankowicz, who once claimed militarized Trump supporters would show up to the polls with weapons to intimidate voters pic.twitter.com/GNfLdh4QHr
— Jack Posobiec 🇺🇸 (@JackPosobiec) April 27, 2022
