Remember the Disinformation Complex that thrived under the Biden administration and effectively throttled conservative media online?
Three years ago this month, the Biden White House paused its plans to establish a Disinformation Board within the Department of Homeland Security and install “Scary Mary” Nina Jankowicz as its “disinformation czar” when Congress balked at the Orwellian dimensions of this scheme. But undeterred, these government-sanctioned censors merely burrowed into the Deep State.
Piggy-backing on successful whole-of-government efforts to brand as threats to public health any voices not on board with mandating an untested COVID-19 vaccine for millions, this movement gathered force as it marched forward with the banners of officialdom and moral probity.
While the Federal Bureau of Investigation installed agents in the nerve center of then-Twitter, the U.S. Department of State re-engineered its Global Engagement Centers (GECs) — originally conceived to fight anti-American actors in the global war on terror — into a network capable of labeling conservative news outlets as ‘disinfo’ sources and blacklisting them online.
No longer able to operate with impunity within the State Department or FBI after November 2024, many of the leading characters of this censorship movement guised as ‘anti-disinformation warriors’ have found welcoming perches overseas from which they are seeking to weaponize foreign government against U.S. media, experts say.
Speaking on Steve Bannon’s War Room, former State Department official and Foundation for Freedom Online executive director Mike Benz said on Wednesday that “The U.S. censors in exile have fled to their in-power government allies in foreign governments to use foreign censorship laws to coerce American social media companies and American citizens about what they can and cannot post online.”
Also on Wednesday, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio — under whose leadership the GECs are being dismantled — stated that foreign officials who censor U.S. media will be denied visas. This may be a powerful blow to the wink and nod network of governments in Europe and elsewhere seeking to pressure American social media platforms on content they consider politically distasteful.
Months after her bid to be America’s disinfo czar was scuttled, Jankowicz moved to England and registered as a foreign agent with the U.S. Department of Justice because she was paid by the UK government to carry on her mission on the other side of the pond. Like Jankowicz, others formerly employed by U.S.-funded efforts to monitor, label and filter content as ‘disinformation’ are headed abroad, often as ‘digital nomads,’ anecdotal reports indicate.
Last spring, the University of Texas released a report showing how the perceived threat of disinformation as a pretext for context moderation is exaggerated and defeatist. Meanwhile, a recent study by Oxford University cites polling data to support demand for content moderation abroad. In other words, the debate continues.
As Americans consider the potentially malign influence of the pervasive, Chinese-owned platform Tik-Tok, and the U.S. intelligence community has reported — with varying degrees of amplification based on whom they are getting their instructions from — on foreign efforts to manipulate U.S. public opinion via social media, the reality of there being a two-way street when it comes to foreign influence cannot be denied.
But regimes such as those in China, Russia, Iran and elsewhere are more likely to impose stringent content moderation and even blocking than democratic governments, global practice shows.
Secretary Rubio’s recent declaration will likely shine a light on a discussion that has long being held in the shadows. Will the very forces who weaponized the concept of ‘foreign election interference’ in an effort to hobble the first Trump administration now seek shelter in other governments from which they can wage digital warfare in the name of fighting disinformation? If so, the irony will be rich. And only time can tell.
