Ever since Elon Musk announced his intentions to buy Twitter the reaction from liberals has been nothing of a meltdown. When Musk actually clinched a deal to buy Twitter for $44 billion the meltdown devolved into a full-scale implosion.
The primary cause of the outrage was Musk’s pledge to defend
free speech
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1518677066325053441
Most of the anger emanated from the Washington Democrat
Establishment and rapidly spread like wildfire elsewhere.
Musk recently added a caveat to his assertion about free speech
saying that it has to be within the realm of the law.
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1519036983137509376
It was hence not a question of if but when Washington would respond by
using the government to place roadblocks.
On Wednesday, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro
Mayorkas testified that
a Disinformation Governance Board had recently been set up.
This news comes a week after former President Obama talked about disinformation and even called for censorship of social media at Stanford University
It was also announced that Nina Jankowicz will head The
Department of Homeland Security's Disinformation Governance Board as executive
director.
The expectation usually is that a department to combat disinformation would be headed by an individual with a consistent track record of being factual and a proclivity of spotting false information.
But since it is the Biden administration, so you must expect the
contrary of what is required.
Jankowicz is a fellow at the Wilson Center where she studied the 'intersection of democracy and technology in Central and Eastern Europe'. She also wrote books such “How To Lose the Information War: Russia, Fake News, and the Future of Conflict” and “How to Be a Woman Online”
Obviously is a pattern here that her recruiters in the Biden administration liked.
The Oxford Dictionary defines disinformation as “a form of
propaganda involving the dissemination of false information with the deliberate
intent to deceive or mislead.”
So how has Jankowicz’s record been on combating disinformation
When stories about Hunter Biden's infamous laptop broke,
Jankowicz was among those attempting to dismiss it as disinformation.
She repeated the false claim that
former intelligence experts had branded it as "Russian disinformation."
https://twitter.com/wiczipedia/status/1319463138107031553
When she almost conceded that the emails on the laptop could be real,
she claimed it was part of “part of an influence campaign”.
https://twitter.com/wiczipedia/status/1319257015651368960
She even blamed the Ukrainians for it.
https://twitter.com/wiczipedia/status/1319251093298302976
Last year she attempted to claim it was Kremlin disinformation.
https://twitter.com/wiczipedia/status/1371893809945182210
The suppressing and dismissal of the
Hunter Biden laptop news story by the Biden campaign, the media, and big tech was one of
the many ways the 2020 Presidential election was rigged
If that wasn’t enough, Jankowicz
also promoted the mother of all
disinformation the Clinton-campaign-created Trump-Russia dossier.
To summarize, her record she that she labels information as disinformation and vice versa.
There are only inferences to be
drawn that Jankowicz is either gullible or dishonest or blatantly partisan or perhaps a bit
of all. These qualities should have disqualified her from being made head of a
disinformation board.
The Biden
administration no longer even cares to appear fair or moral.
Equally troubling is that Jankowicz seems to neither understand nor believe in
freedom of expression as a right.
https://twitter.com/JackPosobiec/status/1519397817260904454
So the question that must be
asked is what is the goal behind this very dystopian board?
In a democracy openness is essential. The elected must always make full disclosure about the workings within the government. It is not only essential to supply the name of any government body but also its existential purpose and its authority.
Mayorkas was cryptic about powers that would be granted to the
Board. All he said was the board would work to "tackle the threat, not only to
election security but to our homeland security."
Mayorkas also added they are working “to equip local
communities, to identify individuals who very well could be descending into
violence by reason of ideologies, of hate, false narratives, or other
disinformation and misinformation propagated on social media and other
platforms.”
The goal here perhaps is to retain the liberal bias of Twitter
that Musk intends to liberate Twitter from.
The fact that the government the board is running raises questions.
- How do they define 'disinformation'?
- How will they combat ‘disinformation’ on social media?
- Will they merely order social media firms to label certain posts as disinformation?
- Will this 'disinformation' be suppressed, like Twitter did to the Hunter laptop story?
- Will users who spread 'disinformation' be suspended?
- Will the might of the law be used against 'disinformation' spreaders?
The mere presence of a government-run Disinformation board may deter some,
who just do not want trouble, from speaking out, which probably was always the
goal.
“Why are conservatives worried? Only those who spread disinformation have a reason to panic?”
is what the board members will tell you, almost hinting that your concerns are
proof of your guilt.
So how has the record of the Biden administration been in these
matters?
Their treatment of the protestors of January 6th
has been sub-human. The blatantly partisan January 6th committee exists
merely to persecute and torment political opponents. Parents who were concerned
about their children being indoctrinated with Critical Race Theory were branded
as Domestic Terrors. Also, their myriad purposeless investigations of President
Trump exist to prevent him from running in 2024.
Those who are confident about their ideas always welcome debates
because opposing perspectives always enrich the mind. The Democrats know that
their ideas are deeply flawed, very unpopular, and often bizarre and even dangerous. Hence the only way
to push these ideas is to mandate them and make any questioning of them illegal.
Another possible goal of this Board could be related to the mid-terms.
The Democrats know they will receive an emphatic shellacking
in November. Perhaps the board will take the first step towards challenging the
results by claiming the GOP victory was all on the basis of disinformation and hence it is
invalid. Rogue Democrat operatives such as Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell will
then make the case that Putin took time from the war in Ukraine to help the GOP
and the media will amplify the hysteria.
How does the GOP react to all this?
They make noise during hearings and on Fox News. They can perhaps set up a shadow Disinformation Governance Board where they highlight
the myriad falsehoods pushed by the Democrats.
They could begin retrospectively with the Trump Russian
Collusion hoax, proceed to the suppression and dismissal of the Hunter Laptop story and then look
to the present and the future. This shadow board may not have any legal
authority but it certainly will be an effective tool in controlling the narrative.
When the GOP wins after the midterms they must make their Disinformation
board official.
Back to Biden's Disinformation Governance Board, the strongest argument against its existence is that no government has the authority to sit in judgment on the First Amendment rights of its own citizens.
It is now up to the GOP to aggressively challenge the Democrats and prove to the voters that they are worthy of their trust and votes in November.
Also appears on American Thinker
Comments
Post a Comment