Nina Jankovic’s new book, How to Be a Woman Online, describes the malice she and other women have faced with trolls and other vicious actors. She is now at the center of a new storm of criticism, this time over her appointment to head an advisory board at the Ministry of Homeland Security on the threat of misinformation.
The creation of a board, announced last week, has turned into a guerrilla struggle for disinformation itself – and what role, if any, the government should play in policing fake, sometimes toxic and even violent online content.
Within hours of the announcement, Republican lawmakers began criticizing a board like Orwell, accusing the Biden administration of creating a “Ministry of Truth” to control people’s minds. Two professors writing an opinion column in The Wall Street Journal noted that the acronym for the new Disinformation Management Council was just a “letter from the KGB,” the Soviet Union’s security service.
Alejandro N. Mallorca, secretary of the Interior Ministry, has defended himself. In a television interview with CNN on Sunday, he insisted that the new board was a small group, that it had no operational powers or capabilities, and that it would not spy on Americans.
“We in the Department of Homeland Security do not monitor American citizens,” he said.
Mr Mallorca’s assurance did not help quell the furor, stressing how partisan the disinformation debate has become. Faced with a series of questions about the board on Monday, White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki said it was a continuation of work the department’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency had begun in 2020 under the previous administration.
Its focus is to coordinate the department’s response to the potential impacts of misinformation threats – including foreign electoral influence, such as that of Russia in 2016 and again in 2020; smugglers’ efforts to encourage migrants to cross the border; and online publications that may incite extremist attacks. Ms Psaki did not specify how the department would determine what extremist content was online. She said the board would consider making its findings on misinformation public, although “much of this work is really about work that people may not see every day that is done by the Home Office.”
Many of those who criticized the board reviewed Ms. Jankovic’s previous statements, online and offline, accusing her of being hostile to conservative views. They assumed – without reason – that he would stifle legally protected speech using guerrilla thinking.
Two high-ranking Republicans on House Intelligence and Homeland Security committees – Michael R. Turner of Ohio and John Katko of New York – cite her recent comments on the laptops of Hunter Biden, the president’s son, and Elon Musk’s offer to buy Twitter as proof of bias.
Ms. Jankovic, 33, suggested in her book and in public statements that condescending and misogynistic online content could presuppose violence and other illegal actions offline – the types of threats the board is designed to monitor. Her book cites a study of dangerous reactions faced by prominent women, including Vice President Kamala Harris since her 2020 nomination.
Ms Jankovic called on social media companies and law enforcement agencies to take stronger action against online abuse. Such views have sparked warnings that the government should not control online content; this also motivated Mr Musk, who said he wanted to buy Twitter to free its users from severe restrictions that he said violated freedom of speech.
“I shudder to think, if the absolutists of freedom of speech take over more platforms, what would it be like for marginalized communities around the world who are already taking on so much of this abuse, disproportionately large amounts of this abuse,” Ms. Jankovic told NPR in an interview last week for her new book, referring to those experiencing online attacks, especially women and people of color.
A tweet she sent using part of this quote was quoted by Mr Turner and Mr Katko in their letter to Mr Majorcas. The note requires “all documents and communications” regarding the establishment of the board and the appointment of Ms. Jankovic as its executive director.
The council quietly began work two months ago, with part-time staff from other parts of the big department. The Department of Homeland Security decided to form the board last year after completing a study in the summer that recommended setting up a group to review privacy and civil liberties for online content, according to John Cohen, a former acting head of the department. branch of intelligence.
“And to make sure that when the components of the department do this analysis, they work in a way that is compatible with their authorities,” Mr Cohen, who left the administration last month, said in an interview.
Mr Cohen dismissed claims that the group would control the language online.
“This is not a big room with pop-ups from Facebook and Twitter,” Mr Cohen said. “It looks at policy issues, looks at best practices, looks at academic research on how misinformation affects the threat environment.”
After examining policy issues, the board should provide guidance to the Home Secretary on how the various agencies should analyze online content while protecting American civil liberties, and how widely the findings of that analysis can be shared.
According to a statement issued Monday, the department said the board would monitor “disinformation spread by foreign countries such as Russia, China and Iran, or other opponents such as transnational criminal organizations and human smuggling organizations.” The statement also cited misinformation that could be spread during natural disasters, such as false information about the safety of drinking water during Hurricane Sandy in 2012.
This is not the first time the Interior Ministry has tried to identify misinformation as a threat to the homeland. The department joined the FBI in issuing terrorism bulletins warning that lies about the 2020 election and the Capitol riots on January 6, 2021 could encourage domestic extremists.
Mr Majorkas defended Ms Jankovic, calling her a “renowned expert” who was “highly qualified” to advise the department on security threats posed by the fruitful online atmosphere. At the same time, he admitted that he had not treated the announcement on the board incorrectly – in a simple press statement last week.
“I think we could probably do a better job of saying what he’s doing and what he’s not doing,” he told CNN.
Ms. Jankovic has been a well-known commentator on disinformation for years. She has worked for the National Democratic Institute, a branch of the National Endowment for Democracy that promotes democratic governance abroad, and has worked as an associate at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scientists in Washington.
As a Fulbright Scholar, she served 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, focuses on arming information from Russia. He warned that governments were ill-prepared and unprepared to counter disinformation.
A quote published in her biography on the Wilson Center website highlights the challenges for those who would struggle with misinformation.
“Disinformation is not a party problem; it is democratic and cooperation will be needed – cross-party, cross-sectoral, intergovernmental and cross-border – to win, “it said.
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