Biden's Disinformation Governance Board is a Bad Idea (Even if Well-Intentioned)
Despite claiming to protect civil liberties and freedom of speech, the expansion of government policy into "disinformation" poses great risk to fundamental freedoms.
What is Biden’s So-Called “Disinformation Governance Board”?
On April 27, 2022, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced the creation of a Disinformation Governance Board. The stated intentions of the board were to combat online disinformation that targeted migrants or originated from Russian actors. Nina Jankowicz, a fellow at the Wilson Center focusing on disinformation, was appointed to be the Board’s executive director. Within moments of its announcement, the story blew up. Conservatives and self-described civil libertarians, like Gleen Greenwarld, rang the alarm bells that this would be used to stifle online free speech and attack political dissidents. Furthermore, many argued that Jankowicz was too partisan to be trusted to use the authority properly. Greenwald questioned the validity of the idea of “disinformation” altogether, and the National Review criticized her own “disinformation” by denying the Hunter Biden laptop story.
DHS responded to these claims quickly, releasing a fact sheet on their website. DHS and Nina Jankowicz both claim that the board will work to “protect American’s freedom of speech, civil rights, civil liberties, and privacy”. DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas argued that the board was small and had no operational authority. Instead, the board should be viewed as an attempt to promote civil liberties in addressing human trafficking and illegal migration concerns, while improving coordination within DHS.
Additionally, Mayorkas defended Jankowicz against claims that she was a partisan, arguing that she was a leading “disinformation expert” and “eminently qualified”. These reassurances have, unsurprisingly, not quelled the concerns of the Board’s opponents. Most of these concerns have come from conservatives and libertarians, which shouldn’t come as a surprise, but liberals should care about this issue too.
The liberal press has largely defended the creation of the board and the appointment of Jankowicz. The New York Times published an article that, while not explicitly supporting DHS, framed the argument to suggest that conservative concerns were unfounded. Even a quick glance at news sites confirms the bias on this issue. The headline on Fox News today is about the Disinformation Governance Board, while CNN and MSNBC do not have major headlines on the issue (although MSNBC does highlight a blog piece calling Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter “toxic”). In fact, the issue is altogether absent from conversation in liberal media circles.
Why this Board is Dangerous
Liberals, at least liberals in the old sense of being committed to things like civil liberties, should care about this issue. They should not take the DHS’s claims for granted or assume good intentions. Even if the DHS’s intentions are altogether positive, the creation of this board should still be viewed critically and cautiously. Even if this exact governing infrastructure isn’t abused, it lays the blueprint for a government expansion into combatting “disinformation” that could have downstream consequences for issues we all care about.
A brief glance at recent history provides ample reason to be suspicious. President George W. Bush’s PATRIOT Act was (rightfully) derided by liberals for being a violation of US citizens’ privacy and disproportionately targeted Muslim Americans. Similarly, despite the (supposedly) good intentions of PATRIOT Act, the creation of a Disinformation Governance Board is rife with opportunities for overreach and abuse. The shifting sands of partisan control of the government, a long history of abuses by the DHS, and the ambiguous nature of the term “disinformation” make this a dangerous and misguided action by the Biden administration.
Republican Control of “Disinformation Governance”
Firstly, even if you aren’t a conservative, you should care about this because the likelihood Republicans take back the White House in 2024 is high. Even if on principle you believe the government should fight “disinformation”, you should still care for this reason alone. If/when Donald Trump, Ron DeSantis, or any other Republican takes office in 2024, do you imagine they will use this board in ways you approve of? Do you really think a term as broad as “disinformation” could not be abused by your own worst political adversaries?
To further illustrate this point, the conversation on gender and sexuality has heated up the past few months. Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” or “Anti-Groomer” bill (whichever frame you prefer); Texas’ criminalization of childhood gender transitions; alongside a slew of other state bills that restrict school curriculum, participation of trans youth in sports leagues, and access to transition-related care for minors. Regardless of your own feelings about these specific bills, it would logically follow that a Republican president could use this kind of authority to target “disinformation” about gender and sexuality. Even if it wasn’t through the DHS, this anti-disinformation campaign lays the groundwork for other ways the federal government can restrict speech, curricula, and healthcare guidance.
Why Trust the Department of Homeland Security?
As mentioned, the Disinformation Governance Board is housed in the Department of Homeland Security. Yes, the same DHS that was created by President George W. Bush post-9/11. The same DHS that houses the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency that separated families at the border and continues to hold tens of thousands of individuals in camps. The same DHS that snatched up protesters in unmarked vans in Portland during the Summer of 2020. Only a few years ago, plenty of people on the left were calling for the abolition of not only ICE but DHS entirely. And yet, today, we are expected to believe that a working group in the DHS could not easily be expanded to include practices that violate civil liberties and restrict freedom of speech.
Additionally, the concept of “disinformation” as a policy matter is relatively new and remains ambiguous in scope. A quick Google Trends search indicates how new the topic really is. Barely any discussion or interest in the topic began until 2020, tracking a rise in concern about deepfakes, election fraud and foreign meddling, COVID and vaccine related falsehoods, and Russian disinformation about the conflict in Ukraine.
While these concerns are not unfounded, government intervention is unlikely to make this situation any better. Jankowicz's featured quote on the Wilson Center’s website states, “Disinformation is not a partisan problem; it’s a democratic one…”. This isn’t untrue, but this narrow focus prevents these actors from considering issues like blowback. Once the government becomes a player on this issue, the tides will change with each new administration. This is especially true in a hyper-partisan political environment. Bringing government into the fold only raises the stakes and encourages unnecessary fear and paranoia on the part of political opponents. These attempts at fighting disinformation inevitably become partisan and only lower social trust in a country already facing declining levels of social trust.
Bringing the DHS into these issues will only raise the political temperature (as is currently happening) and contribute to partisan tensions. The history of DHS does not encourage me either, as it has a long history of overreach and violation of civil liberties.
What can be done about disinformation?
The internet has opened up a Pandora’s box of opportunities for new information, both for good and ill. As such, the political pressures are mounting for the government to do something. Bipartisan legislation has been proposed to break up “Big Tech”, one goal of which is to turn companies like Facebook into “publishers” who can be held liable for supposed censorship or misinformation. Big Tech CEOs were grilled by lawmakers in 2017 on their role in spreading misinformation, and in 2018 lawmakers pressured intelligence officials to assess the risk of disinformation through deepfake technologies. Outside the US, laws, task forces, and advisory boards have been set up to confront perceived misinformation and disinformation. I am pessimistic about the capacity of the federal government to meaningfully and tactically intervene on these issues without violating fundamental rights.
As previously mentioned, what is considered “true” will always be subjective to a degree. Government actors punishing individuals and companies who spread what they perceive to be misinformation or disinformation will also likely increase backlash to important institutions. Just look at the state of public health institutions who, after several years of backtracking on claims, have further fueled distrust by anti-vaxxer and COVID conspiracy theorists. There is no way for policymakers to decide on these issues without making political judgments that will further increase polarization and reduce social and institutional trust.
This, then, becomes an issue best handled by private actors or, in strict and targeted ways, by law enforcement officials. Arguably this disinformation governance board attempts to do this in some aspects, but the inclusion of election misinformation as a priority indicates that this will quickly devolve to include more controversial subjects. This is especially true in an environment where the pressures to address other, even more hotly debated issues, such as gender and sexuality, school curricula, and COVID misinformation, continue to rise. The expansion of government power into addressing disinformation opens up opportunities for overreach, suppression of speech, restriction of civil liberties, and further encroachment of surveillance into private lives.