The former disinformation chief of the Biden administration’s short-lived information-vetting program has joined a nonprofit organization that targets those who question the credibility of appointed disinformation gatekeepers.
Nina Jankowicz, the former head of the Department of Homeland Security’s disbanded Disinformation Governance Board (DGB), which was shut down in August 2022 amid controversy over its potential weaponization, is now the executive officer and co-founder of the American Sunlight Project (ASP).
The ASP’s stated mission is to “expose deceptive information practices,” “educate the public about the threats,” and “engage with policymakers to return truth to our national discourse,” according to its website.
In a letter on behalf of the ASP to committee and subcommittee chairmen Reps. Jim Jordan (R–Ohio), Dan Bishop (R-N.C.), and James Comer (R-Ky.), Ms. Jankowicz criticized the conservative congressman for what she said was using government resources to go after “independent technology researchers” and “misconstrue their work.”
“The Weaponization Subcommittee has selectively released congressional testimony to discredit [the researchers], make them targets for harassment, and create a chilling effect across the field of disinformation research,” Ms. Jankowicz said.
“These are real, present-day threats to American democracy that are being generated both by our foreign adversaries and actors inside the U.S., and they will only intensify as our regulations, law enforcement, and norms struggle to keep up with technological advances,” she said.
Instead of resolving to fight these threats, government agencies have taken a step back while social media companies have reversed moderation policies in fear of “potential political retribution,” she noted.
Pointing to the Weaponization of the Federal Government and the Oversight, Investigations, and Accountability subcommittees, she said, “This halt in activity can be attributed in part to the targeted attacks of your committees, which have falsely alleged that any study of, or communication about, information amounts to what you have dubbed as ‘censorship.’”
She accused committee members of specifically targeting women, who consequently “have faced gendered, sexualized, violent rhetoric as a result of your actions.”
The subcommittees’ investigations have been based on “cherry-picked evidence” that “distorts the truth,” while giving a platform to “baseless conspiracy theories.”
She called on the subcommittees to “release all unedited transcripts and video recordings” related to their investigations.
‘Twitter Files’
In 2023, the Republican-majority House voted to create the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, chaired by Mr. Jordan, after the 2022 release of a 1,000-page report detailing whistleblower testimony about alleged politicization of the Department of Justice and the FBI.In 2022, Louisiana’s then-Attorney General (now governor) Jeff Landry, along with Missouri’s then-Attorney General (now senator) Eric Schmitt, filed a lawsuit against the Biden administration. They alleged exactly what the Twitter Files later exposed: an attempt by the federal government to act as a gatekeeper of information on social media, thereby controlling the dominant narrative in public discourse.
In August 2022, the DGB was disbanded after public concern over its “potential for censorship.”
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) argued that the board could be used as a way to control speech.
‘Informational Harms’
In an interview with CNN on launching ASP, Ms. Jankowicz said the group’s intent is to protect democracy at a time when political polarization in the United States makes the country an easy target for foreign adversaries.“In the meantime, disinformation researchers, people who are working on those threats—the canaries in the coal mine—they’re being snuffed out by our very own members of Congress,” she said. “There’s a dereliction of duty going on, basically.”
She disagreed with the way DHS implemented the DGB, during which time she said she received death threats.
With the ASP, she said there will be more transparency.
When asked about the difference between a government agency launching a disinformation regulation agency and a nonprofit doing so, she responded by first stating that the DGB was “widely lied about” when it was characterized as a “ministry of truth” in which she would decide what is true or false online.
“It was about coordinating best practices within the department,” she added. The ASP’s goal is different, she said.
“We’re still bringing people together. We’re coordinating, but we’re shining a light on the informational harms that have infected our informational ecosystem right now.”
The Epoch Times reached out to the subcommittees for comment.
