Alejandro Mayorkas testified Wednesday that the Department of Homeland Security is creating a “Disinformation Governance Board” to combat misinformation ahead of the 2022 midterms.
As this comes just days after Musk’s purchase of Twitter, what do you think about this?
At the risk of being repetitive, a reminder that ToS still applies.
Good luck.
Can we place bets on whether or not it will do any significant good?
I think the name says it all Disinformation Governance Board. This in America 2022. What could possibly go wrong?
Results are often the opposite of what you expect. Whiplash effect. We’ll see.
Disinformation is bad for our country no matter where on the political spectrum it originates from. But a government committee weighing in on what’s disinformation and what’s not is disturbing to me.
I agree with everything you said. “Disinformation”, especially coming from foreign governments, is very bad. But there clearly needs to be a balance, and there already is: the First Amendment of the US Constitution.
Remember the government (federal and state) already have several agencies that regulate aspects of speech. For example, the US Federal Trade Commission and the state AG’s offices etc have consumer protection functions regulating deceptive advertising. So that’s a clearly acceptable regulation of speech.
Similarly, the US Securities and Exchange Commission and the various state securities regulators also regulate speech in the context of securities filings, company press releases etc to avoid wrong/misleading info in the context of the sale and exchange of securities.
The First Amendment most definitely remains as a formidable challenge to an overreach by this board, so they will have to tread carefully.
The American free press system has been manipulated since it’s inception and few knew how to do this better than Ben Franklin - remember the Silence Dogood letters? The notion that we’ve ever had an unbiased media is comical. Still, people like to cite the days of Walter Cronkite and the Huntley-Brinkley Report as something virtuous and unassailable just because they didn’t know any better.
Who is qualified to determine what is disinformation and what isn’t? That should send an Orwellian chill down every American spine.
Why “American” in your first sentence? No “press” system has been unbiased since the beginning of written history. “History is written by the winners,” is a phrase that comes to mind.
Even if a system of any sort tries to be unbiased, they still select what to report on and what to leave out.
That said, facts need to be true. The whole alternative fact thing bugs me. There are no alternative facts. There may be studies that come to different conclusions - which is why they need to be repeatable to be taken as a “fact,” but 2+2=4, and Russia is bombing civilians in Ukraine are all facts. If those are getting distorted, I’d like someone to point it out.
I often use Fact Checking sites to see if something I read/saw is true or not. From the titles of various options, many people try to post pics of events that aren’t what they say they are and things like that. Perhaps it’s their free speech to do so, but I want to know they’re full of crap.
It’s tough to know who should take the lead in exposing things, but I’m glad there are organizations dedicated to doing so because my neighbors don’t know it all even if they think they do.
Dystopian, Orwellian. So much can be said. But not a lot needs to be said. If you’ve read 1984, Orwell in any form or many other pieces of literature, you’d have a chill and more.
My guess is that this board goes away within 30 days due to extreme backlash. Testing the waters.
We are mostly agreed. I say American only because this is where I was born. Don’t get me wrong, it’s far worse elsewhere. I’m all for organizations checking facts, just not governments issuing diktats on them. And this goes doubly for unelected czars.
There are MANY objective standards in spotting disinformation.
A simple online search for “examples of Russian disinformation on social media” turns up thousands of articles like this: Seven tips for spotting disinformation on the Russia-Ukraine war | Stanford News
What is “Orwellian” or “dystopian” is allowing this kind of clear foreign-sourced disinformation to attack the US and other countries to go unchecked.
ETA: Here’s another good article: How to spot fake or misleading footage on social media claiming to be from the Ukraine war | PBS NewsHour
What is dystopian is that disinformation has already won, and verifiable facts are no longer generally accepted, so whether something is true or false no longer matters in many contexts, as evidenced by declining levels of trust across the US, which will lead to eventual decline as Americans increasingly distrust and fight each other rather than doing things that are productive for both themselves and the country as a whole.
And that is the purpose of the DGB, namely to serve as a check against this: Disinformation Governance Board to tackle spread of misinformation in U.S., focusing on Russia and U.S.-Mexico border - CBS News
At best, it is too little, too late. At worst, those who already believe the kind of disinformation being targeted will react against it.
I’m just surprised that so many people reiterate what they hear on the news ad infinitum. Oh well. I’ve read Orwell, Soltzhenitsyn and Nietzche. They foretold things and the things actually happened. Going to go with historical context better than daily media. I ate enough popcorn for the day.
Perhaps…time will tell.
I think it’s ripe for a constitutional challenge. They’re basically installing a domestic censorship board. Can’t be any first amendment issues with that, right?
Disinformation only wins if one stops asking questions. The news attempts to convince me I can pick up a turd by the clean end every day, but I know to question that.
I can’t count the number of times some of my conspiracy believing friends have told me, “I don’t believe it,” when presented with what should be undisputable facts. They believe those compiling the facts lie to fit their purpose. This includes Covid and election stuff, but pre-dates both with other conspiracies.
I just shrug my shoulders and let them be them. It’s their mindset. It’s why I said, “good luck” as my first comment about anyone trying to use facts to convince people about anything. Closed minds aren’t going to change.
There’s always been bias (and often unintentionally because observations are always colored by human biases). But that’s different from intentional disinformation. The degree and volume of the latter has been fueled by the rise of social media as well as the willingness of those in power (worldwide) to weaponize it.
So, yes we must find ways to combat disinformation because it’s bad for us all. But putting this in the hands of the government scares me.