Following a historic $787.5 million out-of-court settlement announced TuesdayFOX NEWS has new legal concerns looming as a disinformation expert, the victim of a spate of online threats, plans to take legal action against the Conservatives’ favorite chain in the US.
“It was a bit like being buried alive,” said Nina Jankowicz, who has advised foreign states and written two books on disinformation, in an interview with AFP about the harassment campaign.
Last year, the expert was named chair of the newly created Disinformation Governance Council, an official US body tasked with combating falsehoods that could be seen as a threat to homeland security.
From the outset, however, the project was pilloried from all sides: conservatives dubbed it the “Ministry of Truth,” a nod to George Orwell’s “1984,” while civil rights groups saw it as a vehicle of state censorship, like various countries around the world World use anti-fake news laws to quell their critics.
Just weeks after the council’s formation, Nina Jankowicz resigned, and the organization affiliated with the Department of Homeland Security was disbanded within months.
avalanche of threats
However, the 34-year-old pundit hasn’t come out of the crosshairs of Fox News anchors, who have called her a “conspiracy theorist” and a “useful idiot” for the Biden administration that is “cooking disinformation.”
With her resignation, an avalanche of death threats and rapes broke out over her, explains Nina Jankowicz, who expresses her disappointment with the state that does not protect her.
But she insists that much of the problem stems from Fox News, which she accuses of monetizing misinformation.
And the expert, who hopes to file a lawsuit against the chain next month, isn’t the only one in this case.
Photo Bastien INZAURRALDE / AFP
Fox News, the crown jewel of Rupert Murdoch’s media empire, on Tuesday agreed to pay $787.5 million to end the lawsuit against Dominion Voting Systems. This electronic voting machine company accused the chain of lying on the fringes of the 2020 presidential election and claimed the company rigged the results in favor of Joe Biden versus Donald Trump.
In the run-up to a lawsuit against Dominion that ultimately will not go ahead, an impressive body of language was reported by the American media showing that senior Fox News officials were willing to spread falsehoods about the election for fear of offending their audience losing them to competing channels seen as potentially more loyal to Donald Trump.
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“Drowned” in lies
According to Nina Jankowicz, the agreement is “a victory for truth”.
“But that doesn’t solve the problem that people like me face, which is that unless you’re backed by an investment fund, getting justice for the lies that are being told about us is expensive and inaccessible,” he said.
“What is stopping Fox and others from pursuing ‘soft’ targets when there is no deterrent? asks the expert, now vice president of the NGO Center for Information Resilience.
Her online fundraiser to sue the group has raised half of her $100,000 goal so far.
“Fox News irreparably changed my life by feeding lies about me to their tens of millions of viewers,” Nina Jankowicz said in a video for her fundraising page.
Fox News hosts notably mocked her on-air, airing one of her 2021 TikTok videos in which she adapted a “Mary Poppins” song to talk about misinformation.
One of the station’s commentators then described her as “crazy”.
“Tens of thousands of people have harassed me online, hundreds have threatened me violently,” laments the expert.
Fox News did not respond to AFP inquiries about the possible prosecution of Nina Jankowicz.
His complaint should be added to the chain’s other legal ordeals. It also faces a defamation lawsuit from Smartmatic, another electronic voting services company, seeking $2.7 billion.