The Department of Homeland Security is setting up a new board designed to counter misinformation related to homeland security, with a focus specifically on Russia and irregular migration. The board will be called the "Disinformation Governance Board, and will be headed by executive director Nina Jankowicz.
Speaking with the House Appropriations DHS Subcommittee on Wednesday afternoon, DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said, "Our Undersecretary for Policy, Rob Silvers is co-chair with our Principal Deputy General Counsel, Jennifer Gaskell, in leading a just recently constituted misinformation disinformation governance board. So we're bringing — the goal is to bring the resources of the department together to address this threat."
President Biden has decided the federal government will launch a Disinformation Governance Board under the authority of the Homeland Security Department
Jankowicz also oversaw Russia and Belarus programs at the National Democratic Institute. She announced the new Board via Twitter on Wednesday.
Jankowicz has previously said that she was concerned that Twitter had determined early in 2022 to stop limiting speech from users about the 2020 presidential election, saying that "considering the long-term damage these lies do to our democracy," she was "dismayed about this decision."
Her view about elections, whether foreign or domestic, are that they "aren't an end point," but are "an inflection point," and that the policies of social media companies as regards free speech "need to reflect that."
Jankowicz was an advisor to the government of Ukraine. She also stated her opinion that Hunter Biden's laptop, the contents of which were reported by the New York Post, was Russian disinformation. This was entirely false. Jankowicz will be leading the charge against misinformation, of which she believed the laptop actually was an example.
Jankowicz also does not appear to be a fan of free speech, saying that setting up free speech in opposition to censorship is "a false dichotomy."
