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Homeland Security’s unfortunate disinformation board would be part of an effort to work with private social media platforms to moderate their content, the two senators announced Wednesday, citing new documents provided to them by an informant.
The documents explained the issues that made Secretary Alejandro Majorkas want to form the board. These included heated debates over the coronavirus pandemic and the effectiveness of vaccines, and what Homeland Security described as “conspiracy theories about the validity and safety of elections.”
The documents also suggested that the board would play the role of policy police in Homeland Security, with a role in disinformation budgets and how the department engages with “private sector stakeholders.”
“DHS should in no way attempt to engage the private sector to block or silence dissenting opinions,” said Republican Sensor Charles E. Grassley of Iowa and Josh Hawley of Missouri, who released the documents along with a letter demanding further responses from Mr. .
The documents they released included a 2021 memo recommending the creation of a disinformation board for Mr. Majorcas, a January 2022 memo containing a statute establishing the board, and an April schedule describing one of the board leader’s meetings with Twitter executives.
Topics included “operating public-private partnerships between DHS and Twitter” and briefing the tech giant on its new disinformation board.
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The Washington Times reached out to Homeland Security for comment. The ministry announced the suspension of work on May 18.
this documents Suggesting a solid role for the board, which Mr. Majorcas and department officials insisted, was more of an internal police for his own people.
Mr Majorkas said his aim is to ensure that the ministry’s ongoing efforts to control misinformation and disinformation comply with the Constitution and laws governing speech and civil liberties.
However, the presentation failed from the start, with Mr. Majorkas first suggesting that the board of directors engage with the private sector, and then department officials retracted it.
The decision to elect Nina Jankowicz as executive director did more damage to the board.
In their letters, the senators described him as “a known smuggler of foreign disinformation and liberal conspiracies.” They exchanged misinformation about the origins of a laptop owned by President Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, and furthered the now-debunked claim that Donald Trump had a “secret” computer server to communicate with a Russian bank.
“So this is if the (former) chief executive of the DGB can’t identify what is and isn’t disinformation, how can the DGB be? [have] Is it expected to function properly under his leadership?” The senators said in their letters:
They requested documents to expand the ministry’s plans to “operate” relationships with private companies such as Twitter.
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