Two years ago, Nina Janković briefly led a Department of Homeland Security agency created to combat disinformation, but the creation of the agency was a big step in the fight against lies and other harm that continues to resonate online. This has sparked a political and legal battle over the government’s role in cracking down on content.
Now she is fighting what she and others describe as an organized campaign by conservatives and others to undermine researchers like her who study sources of disinformation. has rejoined the fray with a new nonprofit organization dedicated to .
Ms. Jankovitz, who has already become a lightning rod for critics of her work on the subject, is accused of abusing her subpoena power to silence think tanks and universities that expose false sources. He launched the organization by publishing a letter condemning people.
“These tactics reflect the dark days of McCarthyism, but with a frightening 21st century twist,” she said Monday, co-founder of the organization and public relations consultant Carlos, who became involved with the effort in 2020.・Written in a letter with Mr. Alvarez Aranhos. To protect the integrity of America’s voting system.
The launch of the group, the American Sunlight Project, reflects how polarizing the issue of identifying and combating disinformation has become as the 2024 presidential election approaches. This also means that unofficial networks formed at major universities and research institutions to combat the explosion of online disinformation, largely carried out by right-wingers, are calling their efforts as part of a campaign to combat the explosion of disinformation online. It is a tacit admission that they have not been able to mount any substantive defenses against the campaign they have depicted. Silence conservatives.
The campaign, waged in the courts, in conservative media, and in the Republican-led House Judiciary Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, seeks to undermine efforts to police disinformation about the integrity of America’s election system, among other things. has almost succeeded.
Many of America’s most prominent researchers are retreating, facing lawsuits, subpoenas and physical threats.
“More and more researchers are being caught up in this situation, and their institutions are either not allowing them to respond or are responding in a way that they are not able to respond in the moment,” Jankowitz said. said in an interview. “And obviously the problem with this is that if we don’t stop these campaigns, it becomes the prevailing narrative.”
The theory is gaining traction as social media companies abandon or reduce their efforts to enforce their own policies on certain types of content.
Many experts warn that with the advent of artificial intelligence, the problem of false and misleading content will only increase.
“As long as the strategic benefits of engaging in, promoting, and profiting from disinformation outweigh the consequences of spreading it,” the nonpartisan public interest group Common Cause said in a report released last week. “The problem will continue to persist,” he warned. A new wave of disinformation surrounding this year’s voting.
Jankowitz wrote an investigative report into the background and funding of groups that run disinformation campaigns, including those targeting researchers, with the group advertising the broader threat and impact of disinformation. Then he said.
She collaborated with two veteran political strategists. Alvarez-Arañoz, a former communications strategist for Protect Democracy, a nonpartisan group that seeks to counter domestic authoritarian threats, and Eddie Bale, a former member of American Bridge, a liberal group dedicated to rallying opposition. It’s Mr. A study of Republicans.
The organization’s advisory board also includes Katie Harvath, a former Facebook executive and previously a top digital strategist for Senate Republicans. Ineke Muchović, founder of the Movement Advancement Project, a think tank that tracks threats to democracy and gay, lesbian and transgender issues. Benjamin Witts, national security law expert at the Brookings Institution and editor-in-chief of Lawfare magazine;
“We need to be a little more proactive about how we think about defending the research community,” Witts said in an interview, calling attacks on the research community “disinformation and systematic attacks on people who are trying to counter research.” “It’s part of a serious attack.” It’s election interference. ”
In a letter to congressional Republicans, Jankowitz said that a fake robocall appeared with President Biden’s voice and that voters in New Hampshire were unable to hear the state’s main image or an artificially generated image of Donald J. Trump in front of him. It said images of the president and his black supporters discourage people from voting. New efforts by China and Russia to spread disinformation to U.S. audiences.
The American Sunlight Project is organized as a nonprofit organization under the Internal Revenue Code, which allows it greater lobbying freedom than a tax-exempt charity known as a 501(c)(3). It also does not require donors to be identified, although Jankowitz declined to do so, saying the project was initially promised $1 million in donations.
The budget comes on the back of pushbacks like America First Legal, a pro-Trump group with tens of millions of dollars in war chests and suing researchers at Stanford University and the University of Washington over their collaboration with government officials. It pales in comparison to other organizations. To combat misinformation about voting and COVID-19.
The Supreme Court ruled in a federal lawsuit brought by the attorneys general of Missouri and Louisiana, alleging that government agencies used researchers as proxies to pressure social media platforms into removing accounts or restricting access. A verdict is expected soon.
The idea for the American Sunlight Project grew out of Jankowitz’s experience in 2022, when he was appointed executive director of the Department of Homeland Security’s new Disinformation Control Board.
From the moment the commission was made public, it faced intense criticism for being an Orwellian Ministry of Truth censoring dissent in violation of the First Amendment; There was no authority.
Yankovych, a Russian disinformation expert and former adviser to Ukraine’s foreign ministry, resigned shortly after taking office. Still, faced with the plethora of personal threats online, he hired a security consultant. The board was suspended and then abolished after a short review.
“I think we’re in an information environment where it’s very easy to weaponize information and make it look like something sinister,” Alvarez-Aranhos said. “And I think we want transparency. I mean, this is sunlight in the literal sense of the word.”
Jankovitz said she was aware that her involvement in the new organization would attract critics, but that she was well-placed to lead the organization because she had already “experienced the worst of it.”
