US Disinformation Governance Board on pause – czar blames "disinformation"

Nina Jankowicz Claims 'Childish Behavior' Led to Disinformation Board Being Put on Ice | Independent Journal Review - Bradley Cortright:

May 20, 2022 - "Nina Jankowicz, who was tapped to lead the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Disinformation Governance Board, insists that national security is at risk because of 'childish behavior' now that the panel has been put on hold. During an interview on CBS News on Thursday, Jankowicz said, 'I would say that the Disinformation Governance Board was the victim of disinformation.'

"'Disinformation is false information spread with malign intent. And clearly, there was a malign intent on some actors in the media and in politics who just really stood up to the formation of this board because it would be confronting disinformation,' she continued. 'They completely mischaracterized its mission. And frankly, this childish behavior is endangering our national security now. This board was set up to counter real disinformation that makes Americans less safe.... So those who stand in opposition to the board — which as the secretary said was just an internal coordinating mechanism something to make sure we were efficient and using best practices — are standing in the way of our national security,' she insisted."
Read more: https://ijr.com/jankowicz-childish-behavior-disinformation-board-put-ice/

Nina Jankowicz's Faulty Record, Not Her Critics, Doomed the Disinformation Board | Reason - Robby Soave:

May 18,2022 The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has placed a 'pause' on the newly-minted Disinformation Governance Board; its first executive director, Nina Jankowicz, has resigned.... It's unclear whether plans for the board will be un-paused in the future; Jankowicz had initially decided to resign, reconsidered when she was told the pause might be temporary, and then ultimately left anyway.... 

"This news comes from an exclusive report by The Washington Post's Taylor Lorenz, whose scoop is buried underneath layers of pro-government verbiage. For WaPo, the story is not that DHS shuttered the Disinformation Governance Board — the real story is that right-wing 'coordinated online attacks' achieved this outcome after subjecting Jankowicz to an 'unrelenting barrage of harassment'....

Jankowicz's experience is a prime example of how the right-wing Internet apparatus operates, where far-right influencers attempt to identify a target, present a narrative and then repeat mischaracterizations across social media and websites with the aim of discrediting and attacking anyone who seeks to challenge them.... Experts say that right-wing disinformation and smear campaigns regularly follow the same playbook and that it's crucial that the public and leaders of institutions, especially in the government, the media and educational bodies, understand more fully how these cycles operate....

"Yet there is good reason to be skeptical of both the Disinformation Governance Board and Jankowicz's fitness to run it. Informal efforts to police disinformation on social media are beset with serious challenges, as moderators and fact-checkers routinely make odious mistakes: Just today, Facebook dubiously censored a recipe for homemade baby formula. The social media site's fact-checkers have previously flagged Reason articles as spreading false information, only to later admit the articles in question were accurate. John Stossel, host of Stossel TV and a contributor to Reason, is currently suing Facebook for characterizing his videos as misleading, even though fact-checkers eventually conceded he was right.

"Government disinformation cops are no better; time and time again, public health officials circulated false information about COVID-19, and suppressed perfectly legitimate discussion of the theory that the virus originated from a lab leak. And when The New York Post reported on the salacious contents of Hunter Biden's laptop just weeks before the election, the story was widely dismissed by so-called disinformation experts and government security experts on grounds that they presumed it to be Russian malfeasance. "Hunter Biden Story Is Russian Disinfo, Dozens of Former Intel Officials Say," reported Politico back in October 2020. 

"Jankowicz repeatedly made public statements indicating that she held this view, too.She shared national security officials' 'high confidence' that the Hunter Biden story was part of a Russian influence campaign. She described the idea that the laptop had been left behind at a repair shop as 'a fairy tale.' This was a critical test of whether disinformation experts could check their innate tendency to ascribe everything unfavorable to the Democratic Party as Russian nefariousness, and they utterly failed. Jankowicz failed as well."

Read more: https://reason.com/2022/05/18/disinformation-board-nina-jankowicz-taylor-lorenz-pause-dhs/

Nina Jancowicz sings about disinformation: