Nina Jankowicz, a Russian disinformation expert, will head the disinformation governance board of the new Department of Homeland Security
The Biden administration has set up a new Department of Homeland Security board to counter disinformation, led by a woman who questioned the validity of Hunter Biden’s laptop and criticized Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter.
Nina Jankowicz will lead the Department of Homeland Security’s disinformation governance board as executive director, Politico Playbook reported Wednesday morning.
“The cat’s out of the bag: Here’s what I’ve been up to for the last two months and why I’ve been a little quiet on here,” Jankowicz tweeted about her new endeavor and the new DHS board.
“I am honored to serve in the Biden administration @DHSgov and to help shape our efforts to combat disinformation.”
She added that “a HUGE focus of our work, and indeed one of the main reasons for establishing the committee, is to uphold the Department’s (sic) commitment to protecting free speech, privacy, civil rights and civil liberties.” “
The Russian disinformation expert previously called President Joe Biden’s son Hunter’s laptop a “Trump campaign product”.
This raises questions about Jankowicz’s ability to accurately judge disinformation after multiple sources came out confirming the validity of Hunter’s laptop.
Jankowicz also suggested last week that she opposes The First Amendment because she thinks it’s bad for “marginalized communities,” and called Elon Musk a “free speech absolutist” for making Twitter more open to all voices want.
Jankowicz is a Fellow at the Wilson Center, where she studies the “intersection of democracy and technology in Central and Eastern Europe”. She is also the author of How To Lose the Information War: Russia, Fake News, and the Future of Conflict.
Sen. Josh Hawley pointed out that Jankowicz told NPR last week that she “shudders when she thinks of more freedom of expression on social media platforms” after Elon Musk made a bid for Twitter
Jankowicz has also previously questioned the validity of Hunter Biden’s laptop, calling it a “Trump campaign product.”
As stories surfaced about Hunter Biden’s laptop, multiple outlets, social media sites, and left-leaning disinformation experts claimed it was just misinformation from Trump and others on the right.
In an October 2020 report, Jankowicz shared her skepticism about the laptop’s contents and claims that it belonged to Hunter.
“We should look at it as a product of the Trump campaign,” she told the New York Daily News at the time.
Twitter has repeatedly deleted Hunter Biden’s laptop story, preventing it from circulating on the platform.
Billionaire Elon Musk, who just bought Twitter, said his goal is to make the social media platform a more open “digital town square.”
“Freedom of expression is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital marketplace where important issues affecting the future of humanity are debated,” Musk wrote in a statement approving the purchase.
Speaking to NPR last week, Jankowicz questioned Musk’s purchase of the platform and
“I shudder to think if free speech absolutists took over more platforms, what that would look like for the marginalized communities,” she said.
She said these groups “already shoulder … disproportionate amounts of this abuse” and that freedom of speech and lack of censorship on social media made it worse.
Billionaire Elon Musk bought Twitter this week and says he plans to make it a more free-speech platform
Republican Missouri Senator Josh Hawley tweeted a picture of her remarks to NPR with the caption, “The Biden administration’s new anti-speech czar apparently isn’t a fan of @elonmusk’s Twitter acquisition.”
“This is the person that Joe Biden just hired to monitor Americans’ speech. With the power of government.’
Jankowicz has advised the Ukrainian government on strategic communications – she also managed democracy assistance programs for Russia and Belarus.
She received her master’s degree in Russian, Eurasian, and Eastern European Studies from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service and her bachelor’s degree from Bryn Mawr College.