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Trending On The Right

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The DHS says it will create a “Disinformation Governance Board,” ostensibly to crackdown on the spread of false propaganda online. Department of Homeland Security officials specifically cited the need to pushback on disinformation coming from Russia and human smugglers.

News Coverage from the Right: White House 'disinformation czar' Nina Jankowicz makes TikTok account private (Fox News)

News Coverage from the Left: GOP criticizing head of disinformation board over social media posts (CNN)

From the Flag: Here’s more from both sides on the concept of disinformation, free speech, and the woman set to run the agency, author Nina Jankowicz.

• The DGB has a scary sounding name, but it’s rooted in good intentions, and the DHS should be overly transparent as to its motives and goals.
• While conservatives call this an Orwellian move, in truth the DHS is so inept this effort won’t be well organized or have any teeth.
• It’s no surprise right-leaning pundits and politicians are outraged about efforts to combat disinformation, because that’s what their platform is built on.

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“Ignore the hysteria over the Disinformation Governance Board” Editorial Board, Washington Post: “Despite what some in the Republican congressional leadership might tell you, the Department of Homeland Security is not starting up a ‘Ministry of Truth.’ But the agency should be as transparent as possible … The Disinformation Governance Board, (whose acronym is the Soviet-sounding DGB) is supposed to aid coordination among DHS offices as they counter viral lies and propaganda that pose a threat to domestic security. Done right, this is a useful function. … What the board is not tasked to do is to establish what is true and what is false, or to push … a tougher line on expression in general. Indeed, the board has no operational authority at all. … The most effective way of reassuring the public about the DGB is to continue to share more about the DGB. And, perhaps, to choose a better name.”

“Biden’s Hopeless Disinformation Police” Jack Shafer, POLITICO Opinion: “The idea that the Biden administration would pulp the First Amendment and institute an authoritarian regime through its agents at DHS is immediately dismissible if only because it is one of the most ineffectual departments in the president’s Cabinet. Had Biden given the task to Agriculture or Commerce or another department with a better GPA in governing, we should be afraid. But DHS couldn’t stamp out disinformation or erect an American Reich if we reallocated to it all of the arms we’re currently shipping to Ukraine. It’s peopled by a confederacy of dunces and botch-artists, incapable of carrying out its current mission. For instance, DHS shrugged off the Jan. 6 warning signs, according to a Government Accountability Office report. It failed to share intelligence about the wave of Haitian immigrants who breached the border in 2021. ... But never mind DHS. … who thinks the government is capable of telling the truth?”

One more opinion piece from the Left: Homeland Security’s New Disinformation Board Is a Bad Idea, Just Not for the Reason Tucker Carlson Says It Is Alex Shephard, The New Republic

• The problem with tasking individuals to identify “disinformation” is that people have their own inherent biases, and bureaucrats at the DGB will be incentivized to find perceived threats.
• Creating a “disinformation” board is so ridiculous it at first sounded like a joke, but the scary reality is the woman running it is a known peddler of fake news.
• This is the latest sign of progressives and Democrats aggressively pushing into the far-left.

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“Biden Establishes a Ministry of Truth” Roger Koppl and Abigail Devereaux, Wall Street Journal Op-ed: “The stated goal of combating mis- and disinformation is framed to seem unobjectionable. Who objects to truth and pines for falsehood? … But there’s one small problem with empowering ‘truth experts’: Experts are people. By creating the DGB, the US government is creating a crisis monitor with the dial permanently set to ‘existential threat.’ No one inside the board will have the incentive—or the courage—to dial it down. … The dangers of the DGB will be amplified if it becomes the tool of partisan political actors. And it already has. Executive director Nina Jankowicz, who once described Hunter Biden’s laptop as ‘a Trump campaign product,’ … has said: ‘Unless we mitigate our own political polarization, our own internal issues, we will continue to be an easy target for any malign actor—Russian or Iranian, foreign or domestic—to manipulate.’ … Incorrect political opinions become a national-security threat. The DGB already looks frighteningly similar to the KGB.”

“The Nurse Ratched of Disinformation” Editorial Board, Washington Free Beacon: “When we first heard Alejandro Mayorkas announce a Department of Homeland Security ‘Disinformation Governance Board,’ we thought he was trolling. Then he said Nina Jankowicz, best known as TikTok’s ‘Mary Poppins of Disinformation,’ would head it. LOL, as the kids say. … Apparently Mayorkas is serious, and the administration is rolling out Jankowicz, author of the new book ‘How to Be a Woman Online,’ as a ‘renowned expert in the field of disinformation.’ That’s true, though she’s more a practitioner of the craft than an expert in combating it. Jankowicz condemned the New York Post's reporting on Hunter Biden’s laptop as a ‘Russian influence op’ and fanned the bogus claim that the Steele dossier began as a ‘Republican opposition research project.’ These are fine examples of Democrats, as Washington Free Beacon man of the year Matt Yglesias explained in a recent analysis, using the ‘disinformation’ charge as a scapegoat for losing voters.”

One more opinion piece from the Right: The left no longer has any idea what ‘neutral’ even is Editorial Board, New York Post

Polling conducted last week found 49% of respondents feel the internet should be a “free speech zone” without censorship, while 26% disagreed, and 25% weren’t sure.

Responses skewed along partisan lines, with 72% of Republicans saying yes to the internet as a “free speech zone,” while just 34% of Democrats agreed (YouGov).

Meanwhile, several days later, a poll asked if people support the federal government creating a “Disinformation Governance Board.” Just 16% said yes, while 74% said no, and 10% weren’t sure (Norfolk Daily News).

Flag Poll: Do you support the creation of a federal disinformation council? Join our discussion here.

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Today I Learned before the advent of city parks, it was quite common for people to picnic in cemeteries.