After a discrediting campaign, DHS pauses a board created to combat disinformation

After a discrediting¹ campaign, DHS pauses a board created to combat disinformation

Transcript²

A disinformation expert looks back on how disinformation put on hold a new government board she was hired to lead to help coordinate³ the Biden administration's efforts to address false information.

RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:

Three weeks. That's how long a board that was launched by the Department of Homeland Security to help fight disinformation lasted. In those three weeks, both the Disinformation Governance Board and its leader, Nina Jankowicz, came under relentless⁴ attacks from conservatives. NPR's tech correspondent Shannon Bond is here. She talked with Jankowicz yesterday, shortly after she resigned.

Shannon, it's a pretty good get. Can you start by telling us about Nina Jankowicz and her background?

SHANNON BOND, BYLINE⁵: Yes. She's a well-regarded authority on disinformation. She studied Russian information operations. She's advised governments, including Ukraine's. And previously⁶, she was a fellow at D.C. think tank, and - where she focused on democracy and technology in Europe.

MARTIN: So how did she become the subject of so much conservative ire?

BOND: Well, there was a lot of criticism of this Disinformation Governance Board, including from the left. But conservatives seized on Jankowicz herself - her perceived partisanship⁷, her tweets, even a silly TikTok video she made.

(SOUNDBITE OF TIKTOK VIDEO)

NINA JANKOWICZ: (Singing, imitating English accent) Oh, information laundering⁹ is really quite ferocious¹⁰. It's when a huckster takes some lies and make them sound precocious¹¹ by saying them in Congress or a mainstream¹² outlet¹³ so disinformation's origins seem slightly less atrocious.

Ha, ha, ha. Woo.

MARTIN: Wow.

BOND: Yeah. But it was much more than just making fun of a cringe video, right? Jankowicz received this onslaught of abuse, harassment¹⁴, even death threats. And the problem here is DHS did not explain what this board was designed to do. And in the absence of information, given that name, many assumed the worst; this was an attack on free speech by the Biden administration.

Here's Republican Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin on FOX News.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

RON JOHNSON: This is Orwellian. This is a ministry¹⁵ of truth, and the person they've appointed is a Democrat¹⁶ propagandist.

BOND: And so on Wednesday, Jankowicz quit.

MARTIN: And as we noted¹⁷, you talked to her yesterday.

BOND: Yes. And from the outset, she wanted to make one thing clear.

JANKOWICZ: Basically, everything you may have heard about the Disinformation Governance Board is wrong or is just a flat-out lie.

BOND: So to start off, what's a concrete example of the kind of thing the board was meant to do?

JANKOWICZ: Yeah. So let me give you a hypothetical, right? Let's say that there was a deepfake video released about how to access disaster aid or how to get out of a city during a disaster time by - released by a malign¹⁸ actor, like Russia, China, or Iran, in order to put Americans in danger. The board would consult with FEMA, which had been doing this work for more than a decade at this point, and support FEMA in getting good information out there. And they're really good at that already.

But we'd make sure - how do we want to reach this audience? What's the best way to do that? Let's look at best practices in resilience-building or countermessaging to make sure that Americans are safe during this natural disaster. That's just one example. It wouldn't have to do with, again, adjudicating what is true or false or anything like that.

BOND: There is a lack of public clarity, I would say, from DHS about exactly what the board was supposed to do about the kind of things you were describing. And I think that may have been, you know, what, allow this in ways to be mischaracterized - right? - allowed people like Republican Ron Johnson to describe the board as this Orwellian ministry of truth. Why was it so poorly communicated?

JANKOWICZ: That speaks again to the behemoth agency that DHS is. There's a lot of cooks in the kitchen when these decisions are being made. And unfortunately, I think the agency, the department had had other priorities at the time the rollout was happening, and they didn't anticipate this fierce backlash and weren't able to mount a transparent¹⁹, open, rapid response when these criticisms came down the pike. I wish it went differently. And I definitely think that the information vacuum that we created allowed people to fill in the blanks. It frankly²⁰ showed exactly how disinformation campaigns work. And sadly, a lot of the vacuum that was created directed a lot of vitriol and ire and threats and harassment, even, toward me and my family because people were looking for something to latch²¹ on to.

BOND: Right. I mean, I wanted to ask you about that. I mean, you have not been shy about sharing your opinions, you know, on Twitter, on television. That's giving your critics fodder²² to say that you are a partisan⁸ actor. You know, they've cited things like tweets about Hunter Biden's laptop, saying, you know, you can't be trusted. You are a Democratic partisan. What is your response to those criticisms?

JANKOWICZ: My response is that, again, there are 250,000 employees at DHS. When I was at DHS, along with them, I checked my politics at the door. So these misconstruals - deliberate misconstruals and stripping of nuance²³ and context of my previous statements is nothing but a bad-faith, childish distraction²⁴ from real national security issues that has now, you know, hampered²⁵ the department and the federal government's response to these issues. And that makes me extremely sad.

BOND: You have experienced harassment online before. You wrote an entire book about it called "How To Be A Woman Online." Was this experience different from what has happened to you before?

JANKOWICZ: Oh, gosh, Shannon. It was way more overwhelming and exhausting than anything I've experienced before. Other campaigns that I've dealt with, you know, probably numbered in the thousands of tweets or pieces of content or had to do with specific interviews and, you know, would go away after a number of hours. This was three weeks of a barrage²⁶ of sexualized, gendered attacks - attacks on my personal life, attacking my hobbies and my own personality. Obviously, you know, my appearance was always in play as well.

But the worst thing, especially as somebody who's about to become a mom, was these death threats, which - I think I'm at maybe one, two or three days over the three weeks where I wasn't reporting one of them to DHS. And they were pretty staggering. It was about killing²⁷ me and my family, taking away everything I held dear, encouragement for me to commit suicide, doxxing me and my family. And, you know, I think it should be said that the people who are spreading these childish characterizations of me and my work encourage this type of behavior online, whether or not they say those words themselves.

BOND: I mean, I'm so sorry this has happened to you. As an expert in disinformation, given the work this board was supposed to accomplish, you know, how has this experience changed the way you see the challenge of disinformation and, you know, the challenge of how governments can and should respond to it?

JANKOWICZ: It's made me a lot less optimistic about the American response to disinformation. I don't think that dooms²⁸ us. But I think this needs to be a wake-up call that things aren't getting better in this country by ignoring them, that our democratic discourse²⁹, the way it is so polarized and so, again, childish and not focused on the real threats, leaves us vulnerable to attacks from without and within. And, you know, our adversaries³⁰ know that. And that's what I worry most about. I'm coming out of this experience pretty pessimistic but, again, still committed to the work because I don't want my son to grow up in a world where you can't tell truth from fiction and where you can't trust anything anybody says. That's not something that I'm going to abide³¹. And I'm going to keep working on it as long as I have the energy to.

BOND: Nina Jankowicz told me, right now she doesn't know if this was all worth it. Meanwhile, DHS says the board is on pause but not dead yet.

MARTIN: NPR's Shannon Bond. Thank you, Shannon. We appreciate it.

BOND: Thanks, Rachel.

1 discrediting   

使不相信( discredit的现在分词 )； 使怀疑； 败坏…的名声； 拒绝相信

参考例句：

• It has also led to the discrediting of mainstream macroeconomics. 它还使得人们对主流宏观经济学产生了怀疑。

2 transcript   

n.抄本，誊本，副本，肄业证书

参考例句：

• A transcript of the tapes was presented as evidence in court.一份录音带的文字本作为证据被呈交法庭。
• They wouldn't let me have a transcript of the interview.他们拒绝给我一份采访的文字整理稿。

3 coordinate   

adj.同等的，协调的；n.同等者；vt.协作，协调

参考例句：

• You must coordinate what you said with what you did.你必须使你的言行一致。
• Maybe we can coordinate the relation of them.或许我们可以调和他们之间的关系。

4 relentless   

adj.残酷的，不留情的，无怜悯心的

参考例句：

• The traffic noise is relentless.交通车辆的噪音一刻也不停止。
• Their training has to be relentless.他们的训练必须是无情的。

5 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

6 previously   

adv.以前，先前（地）

参考例句：

• The bicycle tyre blew out at a previously damaged point.自行车胎在以前损坏过的地方又爆开了。
• Let me digress for a moment and explain what had happened previously.让我岔开一会儿，解释原先发生了什么。

7 Partisanship   

n. 党派性, 党派偏见

参考例句：

• Her violent partisanship was fighting Soames's battle. 她的激烈偏袒等于替索米斯卖气力。
• There was a link of understanding between them, more important than affection or partisanship. ' 比起人间的感情，比起相同的政见，这一点都来得格外重要。 来自英汉文学

8 partisan   

adj.党派性的；游击队的；n.游击队员；党徒

参考例句：

• In their anger they forget all the partisan quarrels.愤怒之中，他们忘掉一切党派之争。
• The numerous newly created partisan detachments began working slowly towards that region.许多新建的游击队都开始慢慢地向那里移动。

9 laundering   

n.洗涤（衣等），洗烫（衣等）；洗（钱）v.洗（衣服等），洗烫（衣服等）( launder的现在分词 )；洗（黑钱）（把非法收入改头换面，变为貌似合法的收入）

参考例句：

• Separate the white clothes from the dark clothes before laundering. 洗衣前应当把浅色衣服和深色衣服分开。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He was charged with laundering money. 他被指控洗钱。 来自《简明英汉词典》

10 ferocious   

adj.凶猛的，残暴的，极度的，十分强烈的

参考例句：

• The ferocious winds seemed about to tear the ship to pieces.狂风仿佛要把船撕成碎片似的。
• The ferocious panther is chasing a rabbit.那只凶猛的豹子正追赶一只兔子。

11 precocious   

adj.早熟的；较早显出的

参考例句：

• They become precocious experts in tragedy.他们成了一批思想早熟、善写悲剧的能手。
• Margaret was always a precocious child.玛格丽特一直是个早熟的孩子。

12 mainstream   

n.（思想或行为的）主流；adj.主流的

参考例句：

• Their views lie outside the mainstream of current medical opinion.他们的观点不属于当今医学界观点的主流。
• Polls are still largely reflects the mainstream sentiment.民调还在很大程度上反映了社会主流情绪。

13 outlet   

n.出口/路；销路；批发商店；通风口；发泄

参考例句：

• The outlet of a water pipe was blocked.水管的出水口堵住了。
• Running is a good outlet for his energy.跑步是他发泄过剩精力的好方法。

14 harassment   

n.骚扰，扰乱，烦恼，烦乱

参考例句：

• She often got telephone harassment at night these days.这些天她经常在夜晚受到电话骚扰。
• The company prohibits any form of harassment.公司禁止任何形式的骚扰行为。

15 ministry   

n.(政府的)部；牧师

参考例句：

• They sent a deputation to the ministry to complain.他们派了一个代表团到部里投诉。
• We probed the Air Ministry statements.我们调查了空军部的记录。

16 democrat   

n.民主主义者，民主人士；民主党党员

参考例句：

• The Democrat and the Public criticized each other.民主党人和共和党人互相攻击。
• About two years later,he was defeated by Democrat Jimmy Carter.大约两年后，他被民主党人杰米卡特击败。

17 noted   

adj.著名的，知名的

参考例句：

• The local hotel is noted for its good table.当地的那家酒店以餐食精美而著称。
• Jim is noted for arriving late for work.吉姆上班迟到出了名。

18 malign   

adj.有害的；恶性的；恶意的；v.诽谤，诬蔑

参考例句：

• It was easy to see why the cartoonists regularly portrayed him as a malign cherub.难怪漫画家总是把他画成一个邪恶的小天使。
• She likes to malign innocent persons.她爱诋毁那些清白的人。

19 transparent   

adj.明显的，无疑的；透明的

参考例句：

• The water is so transparent that we can see the fishes swimming.水清澈透明，可以看到鱼儿游来游去。
• The window glass is transparent.窗玻璃是透明的。

20 frankly   

adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说

参考例句：

• To speak frankly, I don't like the idea at all.老实说，我一点也不赞成这个主意。
• Frankly speaking, I'm not opposed to reform.坦率地说，我不反对改革。

21 latch   

n.门闩，窗闩；弹簧锁

参考例句：

• She laid her hand on the latch of the door.她把手放在门闩上。
• The repairman installed an iron latch on the door.修理工在门上安了铁门闩。

22 fodder   

n.草料；炮灰

参考例句：

• Grass mowed and cured for use as fodder.割下来晒干用作饲料的草。
• Guaranteed salt intake, no matter which normal fodder.不管是那一种正常的草料，保证盐的摄取。

23 nuance   

n.(意义、意见、颜色)细微差别

参考例句：

• These users will easily learn each nuance of the applications they use.这些用户会很快了解他们所使用程序的每一细微差别。
• I wish I hadn't become so conscious of every little nuance.我希望我不要变得这样去思索一切琐碎之事。

24 distraction   

n.精神涣散，精神不集中，消遣，娱乐

参考例句：

• Total concentration is required with no distractions.要全神贯注，不能有丝毫分神。
• Their national distraction is going to the disco.他们的全民消遣就是去蹦迪。

25 hampered   

妨碍，束缚，限制( hamper的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• The search was hampered by appalling weather conditions. 恶劣的天气妨碍了搜寻工作。
• So thought every harassed, hampered, respectable boy in St. Petersburg. 圣彼德堡镇的那些受折磨、受拘束的体面孩子们个个都是这么想的。

26 barrage   

n.火力网，弹幕

参考例句：

• The attack jumped off under cover of a barrage.进攻在炮火的掩护下开始了。
• The fierce artillery barrage destroyed the most part of the city in a few minutes.猛烈的炮火几分钟内便毁灭了这座城市的大部分地区。

27 killing   

n.巨额利润；突然赚大钱，发大财

参考例句：

• Investors are set to make a killing from the sell-off.投资者准备清仓以便大赚一笔。
• Last week my brother made a killing on Wall Street.上个周我兄弟在华尔街赚了一大笔。

28 dooms   

v.注定( doom的第三人称单数 )；判定；使…的失败（或灭亡、毁灭、坏结局）成为必然；宣判

参考例句：

• The ill-advised conceit of the guardian angel dooms the film from the start. 对守护天使的蹩脚设计弄巧成拙，从一开始就注定这部电影要失败。
• The dooms of the two are closely linked. 一条线拴俩蚂蚱。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

29 discourse   

n.论文，演说；谈话；话语；vi.讲述，著述

参考例句：

• We'll discourse on the subject tonight.我们今晚要谈论这个问题。
• He fell into discourse with the customers who were drinking at the counter.他和站在柜台旁的酒客谈了起来。

30 adversaries   

n.对手，敌手( adversary的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• That would cause potential adversaries to recoil from a challenge. 这会迫使潜在的敌人在挑战面前退缩。 来自辞典例句
• Every adversaries are more comfortable with a predictable, coherent America. 就连敌人也会因有可以预料的，始终一致的美国而感到舒服得多。 来自辞典例句

31 abide   

vi.遵守；坚持；vt.忍受

参考例句：

• You must abide by the results of your mistakes.你必须承担你的错误所造成的后果。
• If you join the club,you have to abide by its rules.如果你参加俱乐部，你就得遵守它的规章。