The Washington Post’s Very Serious Investigative Journalist™️ and Mean Tweets Survivor Taylor Lorenz has a new scoop today: The Department of Homeland Security’s new “Disinformation Governance Board” may be placed on the ash heap of history. And the culprit for the board’s untimely demise, of course, is right-wing disinformation. Lorenz’s piece, titled “How the Biden administration let right-wing attacks derail its disinformation efforts,” outlines how the White House’s totally-not-creepy attempt to crack down on “disinformation” — and the totally “politically neutral” leader of the board, Nina Jankowicz — fell prey to the vast right-wing conspiracy:
Within hours of news of her appointment, Jankowicz was thrust into the spotlight by the very forces she dedicated her career to combating. The board itself and DHS received criticism for both its somewhat ominous name and scant details of specific mission (Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said it “could have done a better job of communicating what it is and what it isn’t”), but Jankowicz was on the receiving end of the harshest attacks, with her role mischaracterized as she became a primary target on the right-wing Internet. She has been subject to an unrelenting barrage of harassment and abuse while unchecked misrepresentations of her work continue to go viral.
Now, just three weeks after its announcement, the Disinformation Governance Board is being “paused,” according to multiple employees at DHS, capping a back-and-forth week of decisions that changed during the course of reporting of this story. On Monday, DHS decided to shut down the board, according to multiple people with knowledge of the situation. By Tuesday morning, Jankowicz had drafted a resignation letter in response to the board’s dissolution.
As Lorenz notes, “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.” Those “mischaracterizations,” I’m sure, included “far-right influencers” pointing out that Jankowicz had previously labeled the now-confirmed Hunter Biden laptop story a “Russian influence op.” The Disinformation Governance Board was no match for the awesome power of disinformation itself.
Ronald Reagan famously remarked that “the closest thing to eternal life on Earth is a government program.” I suppose it’s time to add that, too, to the long list of examples of right-wing disinformation. (Fact Check: Missing Context.) Alas, it appears that there will no longer be a government bureaucracy to police such things. They say that a light that burns twice as bright burns half as long. Disinformation Governance Board, we hardly knew ye.