Former head of former President Biden’s Disinformation Governance Board, Nina Jankowicz, has found a new audience for her political and ideological narratives – and it’s EU institutions.
Jankowicz – known by her critics as “Biden’s disinformation czar” (or at least, would have been one, had the Disinformation Governance Board not been so short lived) – this week spoke at a meeting of a European Parliament committee dedicated to EU Commission’s latest censorship initiative, “the European Democracy Shield.”
The meeting was called to discuss risks to democracy, in this case, what the bloc considers to be Russian disinformation campaigns, but Jankowicz focused on the US administration, referring to her country as “another autocracy” that she wants the EU to “stand firm against.”
Jankowicz took the opportunity to warn that the US administration is “undoubtedly preparing a pressure campaign” to make the EU abandon (censorship) rules like the Digital Services Act (DSA). In the same breath, she also claimed that Washington will pressure Brussels to “end support for Ukraine, to stop holding Russia to account.”
Jankowicz had trouble keeping to the theme of the meeting, namely, “Russian hybrid threats,” and kept returning to her anti-Trump agenda, stating that just as Russia, China, Iran, and others are busy with their “interference campaigns” – in the US, “homegrown anti-democratic forces have launched a coordinated campaign to undermine researchers, journalists, advocates and civil servants who work to expose their lies.”
She was also critical of US tech giants accusing them of being complicit in creating “global instability” and again went back to Trump, his administration’s supposed “capture” of major social networks, only to conclude that neither are interested “in preserving democracy.”
Jankowicz singled out US Secretary of State Marco Rubio for his decision to shut down the Counter Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference (R/FIMI) Hub, which was a rebrand of the also disbanded Global Engagement Center (GEC), a State Department entity involved in flagging social media posts for censorship.
But to Jankowicz, the steps the current administration has been taking to dismantle the intricate and documented system of online censorship is done merely “under the guise of protecting free speech.”
Jankowicz also told the EP commission that she supported 51 former intelligence officials who penned a letter suggesting the Hunter Biden laptop story was “disinformation” – a claim that has since been debunked, but at the time, just before the 2020 election, led to widespread censorship of the New York Post article on the subject.
“A valid expression of free speech,” is how Jankowicz views the letter.
