The Washington Post's invaluable Taylor Lorenz has a case study on how not to deal with bad- faith Christofascists, should the Biden Administration wish to learn from its Disinformation Governance Board debacle. They had the right person -- Nina Jankowicz, a respected expert on disinformation -- to head the board. But a series of missteps and lack of foresight and will on the part of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to forcefully push back on, ironically, a campaign of disinformation coming from the right- with fever swamps, has caused DHS to "pause" implementation of the board.
At the outset, there was a lack of clarity on the board's function:
The board was created to study best practices in combating the harmful effects of disinformation and to help DHS counter viral lies and propaganda that could threaten domestic security. Unlike the “Ministry of Truth” in George Orwell’s “1984” that became a derogatory comparison point, neither the board nor Jankowicz had any power or ability to declare what is true or false, or compel Internet providers, social media platforms or public schools to take action against certain types of speech. In fact, the board itself had no power or authority to make any operational decisions.
“The Board’s purpose has been grossly mischaracterized; it will not police speech,” the DHS spokesperson said. “Quite the opposite, its focus is to ensure that freedom of speech is protected.”
This created a fat target for the smear merchants to target the board and Jankowicz:
The week following the announcement, approximately 70 percent of Fox News’s one-hour segments mentioned either Jankowicz or the board, with correspondents frequently deriding the board as a “Ministry of Truth,” according to Advance Democracy. The Fox News coverage was referenced in some of the most popular posts on Facebook and Twitter criticizing Jankowicz.
Dozens of websites including Breitbart, the Post Millennial, the Daily Caller and the New York Post began mining Jankowicz’s past social media posts and publishing articles to generate controversy. Some were simply mocking, making fun of her for parodying a song from “Mary Poppins” to talk about misinformation. In another instance, a performance where Jankowicz sings a popular musical theater song about a person’s desire to become rich and powerful was misrepresented to imply that Jankowicz herself was after money and power and would sleep with men to get it.
As this online campaign played out, DHS and the Biden administration struggled to counter the repeated attacks.
The DHS was shockingly ill- prepared to deal with what one would normally assume would be a backlash from the disinformation providers:
As she endured the attacks, Jankowicz was told to stay silent. After attempting to defend herself on Twitter April 27, she was told by DHS officials to not issue any further public statements, according to multiple people close to her.
Democratic lawmakers, legislative staff and other administration employees who sought to defend Jankowicz were caught flat-footed. Administration officials did not brief the relevant congressional staff and committees ahead of the board’s launch, and members of Congress who had expressed interest in disinformation weren’t given a detailed explanation about how it would operate. A fact sheet released by DHS on May 2 did nothing to quell the outrage that had been building on the Internet, nor did it clarify much of what the board would actually be doing or Jankowicz’s role in it.
Lorenz points out the pattern followed in these right- wing smear campaigns:
The campaigns invariably start with identifying a person to characterize as a villain. Attacking faceless institutions is difficult, so a figurehead (almost always a woman or person of color) is found to serve as its face. Whether that person has actual power within that institution is often immaterial. By discrediting those made to represent institutions they seek to bring down, they discredit the institution itself.
Harassment and reputational harm is core to the attack strategy. Institutions often treat reputational harm and online attacks as a personnel matter, one that unlucky employees should simply endure quietly.
But that's the last thing that should be done if you want to counter the lies. DHS did it anyway:
The worst thing any institution can do in the face of such attacks is remain quiet, several disinformation researchers said.
“You never want to be silent, because then the people putting out the disinformation own the narrative,” said Mark Jacobson, assistant dean at Syracuse University’s Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, who has researched propaganda, political warfare and disinformation for over 30 years. “You need to have a factual and equally emotional counternarrative. A fact sheet is not a narrative.”
Not responding with a highly compelling counternarrative, or not getting out ahead of these campaigns to begin with, Jacobson explained, can “give them an air of legitimacy.” He said he was frustrated by the Biden administration’s lack of a loud and vocal response to what Jankowicz was going through. “Saying it’s amateur hour is cliche, but it’s amateur hour,” he said of the administration’s inaction.
Unfortunately, threats of violence and lack of effective support has led Jankowicz to resign from her position; she's now a scalp on the belt of the anti- democracy forces in this country.
We'll echo the cliche: it's amateur hour -- and heads should roll at DHS and in the West Wing (but won't).
We've just highlighted portions of Lorenz's piece -- it's worth a complete read.
(Photo: Nina Jankowicz, latest victim of ineptitude and a disinformation smear campaign/ Pete Kiehart, Redux)
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