The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on Wednesday announced the suspension of work by an advisory council aimed at combating disinformation, after what the body described as a deliberate disinformation campaign.
The creation of the group, called the Disinformation Governance Council, produced a firestorm of criticism when it was announced last month. Criticism came from across the political spectrum, including civil liberties groups, but the fiercest denunciations came from the right. Republican leaders and commentators spoke of it as an Orwellian Ministry of Truth that would police people’s speech.
That was never the board’s mission, a DHS spokesperson said in a written statement. Rather, it was intended to coordinate the department’s various agencies in combating malicious disinformation coming from foreign adversaries, drug traffickers, or international criminal individuals and groups.
A few weeks after the council’s creation, however, its fate is now in doubt. Nina Jankowicz, the disinformation authority who was chosen to lead the group, tendered her resignation on Wednesday after facing virulent and highly personal online harassment and abuse.
“The fake attacks have become a significant distraction from the department’s vitally important work, combating disinformation that threatens the security of the American people,” the statement said.
DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas asked two former bipartisan officials to review the issue of combating disinformation: Michael Chertoff, who was the department’s secretary under President George W. Bush, and Jamie Gorelick, deputy attorney general. of President Bill Clinton.
Mayorkas asked them to prepare recommendations within 75 days and said the board would not meet during that time. “Your work will be discontinued,” the statement said, confirming the suspension, which was previously reported by The Washington Post.
Jankowicz’s departure, coupled with the board’s troubled launch, makes it unlikely that he will return to operating in anything like his current form.
“We killed the Ministry of Truth!” wrote one of the council’s many Republican critics, Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida, on Twitter.
Angelo Carusone, president of Media Matters for America, a left-wing watchdog group, said opposition to the council had consolidated quickly and fiercely, suggesting an organized and motivated effort. He noted that combating disinformation has been part of government efforts since the Soviet Union’s Cold War campaigns.
The current political climate, however, has made the matter itself a lightning rod that, he says, authorities should have better anticipated. Instead, they seemed taken aback by the answer.
“I think it’s a disservice to all of us to lose that role, especially after what we just saw in Buffalo, because that’s a consequence of this information landscape,” Carusone said, referring to the racist shootings in New York. “It’s a box of matches.”
As director of the board, Jankowicz, 33, has received the brunt of the attacks, a subject she knows well. Her latest book, “How to Be a Woman Online” [Como ser uma mulher online]chronicles the abuse she and other women face from trolls and other harmful actors on the internet.
One of the issues that surfaced was work Jankowicz did for StopFake, a Ukrainian fact-checking organization sponsored by the US government. Long seen as a model for combating lies coming from the Kremlin, the NGO has been criticized for its directors’ alleged links to violent neo-Nazi groups – Jankowicz herself is accused of having praised these groups in a program she presented for StopFake.
In a resignation letter filed Wednesday, she said she joined the department this year to help deal with the effects of misinformation.
“It is deeply disappointing,” he wrote, “that the board’s mischaracterizations have diverted attention from the department’s vital work and indeed, together with recent events around the world and in the country, represent why it is needed.”
