The uproar over Homeland Security’s Disinformation Governance Board

The Department of Homeland Security’s creation of a Disinformation Governance Board has set off a backlash on the right — even as it’s not entirely clear what the perhaps unfortunately named board will do. Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas mentioned the creation of the board in multiple congressional hearings this week. In one, he linked it to efforts to combat misinformation from human smugglers. In another, he said it would be used to counter Russian cyber and election misinformation: “We have just established a mis- and disinformation governance board in the Department of Homeland Security to more effectively combat this threat, not only to election security but to our homeland security.” Amid growing anti-censorship fervor on the right, a bevy of Republicans have suggested that the initiative amounts to policing speech. Elon Musk declared it “messed up.” Many on the right likened it to the Ministry of Truth from George Orwell’s book “1984.”

They’ve also questioned the fitness of the board’s executive director, Nina Jankowicz, who has in the past supported Democrats, praised efforts to crack down on coronavirus misinformation on social media and expressed skepticism about the provenance of Hunter Biden’s laptop. “Rather than police our border, Homeland Security has decided to make policing Americans’ speech its top priority,” Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) claimed. Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) offered some more toned-down skepticism, citing his own work on combating foreign misinformation. “I do not believe that the United States government should turn the tools that we have used to assist our allies counter foreign adversaries onto the American people,” Portman said. “Our focus should be on bad actors like Russia and China, not our own citizens.” But there are few details on what the board will actually do. DHS hasn’t issued many specifics — including whether and how much it might monitor disinformation from “our own citizens” and whether what it would do would amount to “policing.”