I'm not sure which lasted longer, Biden's Ministry of Truth or CNN+.
Just a few short weeks after it was announced, Biden's Disinformation Governance Board, affectionately known as the "Ministry of Truth," is having to "pause" while it looks for a replacement for Big Sister Nina Jankowicz.
What may be even more sad is how hard Taylor Lorenz and "Democracy Dies In Darkness" Washington Post are taking the news.
Now, just three weeks after its announcement, the Disinformation Governance Board is being "paused," according to multiple employees at DHS, capping a back-and-forth week of decisions that changed during the course of reporting of this story. On Monday, DHS decided to shut down the board, according to multiple people with knowledge of the situation. By Tuesday morning, Jankowicz had drafted a resignation letter in response to the board's dissolution.
But Tuesday night, Jankowicz was pulled into an urgent call with DHS officials who gave her the choice to stay on, even as the department's work was put on hold because of the backlash it faced, according to multiple people with knowledge of the call. Working groups within DHS focused on mis-, dis- and mal-information have been suspended. The board could still be shut down pending a review from the Homeland Security Advisory Council; Jankowicz is evaluating her position within the department.
The irony that the Democracy Dies In Darkness™ paper is the most disappointed that the government's efforts to control speech and thought failed is almost too delicious an irony to describe.
Jankowicz's experience is a prime example of how the right-wing Internet apparatus operates, where far-right influencers attempt to identify a target, present a narrative and then repeat mischaracterizations across social media and websites with the aim of discrediting and attacking anyone who seeks to challenge them. It also shows what happens when institutions, when confronted with these attacks, don't respond effectively.
Those familiar with the board's inner workings, including DHS employees and Capitol Hill staffers, along with experts on disinformation, say Jankowicz was set up to fail by an administration that was unsure of its messaging and unprepared to counteract a coordinated online campaign against her.
In other words, she was the government-sponsored fact-checker, got exposed for being a left-wing hack, and then the Biden Admin didn't know how to respond.
And I'm supposed to feel sorry for them?
"The irony is that Nina's role was to come up with strategies for the department to counter this type of campaign, and now they've just succumbed to it themselves," said one Hill staffer with knowledge of the situation who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak on the issue. "They didn't even fight, they just rolled over."
Fill up your mugs with the leftist tears and pour one out for George Orwell!
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