Remember the Disinformation Governance Board? They supposedly had stopped that after the uproar over it, but White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said that the work would continue.
It sounds as if they just might have repackaged it, shifted Departments, renamed it, and put Kamala Harris in charge now. Instead of Big Brother, we now can have Big Sister. And the wording here may be even more troubling because they’re already talking about the internet platform effect.
They’re calling it an internet policy task force, with the goal of “developing programs and policies” to protect “public figures” and journalists from “disinformation,” “abuse” and “harassment.”
A presidential memorandum establishing the new task force describes a sweeping mission to protect people who seek out a role in public life from online critics.
“In the United States and around the world, women and LGBTQI+ political leaders, public figures, activists, and journalists are especially targeted by sexualized forms of online harassment and abuse, undermining their ability to exercise their human rights and participate in democracy, governance, and civic life,” the memo says.
“Online abuse and harassment, which aim to preclude women from political decision-making about their own lives and communities, undermine the functioning of democracy.”
The new task force’s members include other Biden heavy hitters, such as Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, Attorney General Merrick Garland and Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
The panel will hold its first meeting Thursday afternoon. Within 180 days, it will submit to President Biden a blueprint that “outlin[es] a whole-of-government approach to preventing and addressing technology-facilitated gender-based violence, including concrete actions that executive departments, agencies, and offices have committed to take to implement the Task Force’s recommendations.”
Within a year, the board will issue a report with “additional recommendations and actions” advising broader steps that can be taken by internet platforms, state and local governments and schools, the document says.
In other words, going back to what everyone thought the Disinformation Board was supposed to be about — stopping criticism and questioning of the regime. How is this even real, questioning public figures and journalists is baked into the very nature of being American–as part of that thing we call the Constitution? The announced purpose seems even more dystopian than the prior board. Not to mention that they’re already saying they’re going to be targeting changes on internet platforms.
A Biden official tried to claim this was going to focus on illegal conduct. But if that were true, you already have avenues to do that through federal law enforcement, and this even talks about criticism of public figures, so that’s a lot of bull. It practically screams “First Amendment violation” all over the place and is an effort to silence dissent–coincidentally, right before the midterms in which Democrats are about to take a bath because of their bad policies and lies.
The memo says, “The Task Force shall work across executive departments, agencies, and offices to assess and address online harassment and abuse that constitute technology-facilitated gender-based violence, including by … developing programs and policies to address online harassment, abuse, and disinformation campaigns targeting women and LGBTQI+ individuals who are public and political figures, government and civic leaders, activists, and journalists in the United States and globally.”
It’s not just about protecting the Democrats; it reads like we’re going to protect the media and famous people from criticism by the peasants. If this were a legitimate exercise, why is it covering only famous or well-known people? Again, when they employ this kind of language, it screams that restrictions or censorship is coming. When they keep trying so hard to suppress our freedom of speech, right before the midterms and into the future, you have to wonder what they are intending to do that they know will earn criticism.
Plus, hasn’t Kamala failed enough at what she’s been tasked to do? Do you have to give her something else that people are going to (rightly) rip her apart over?
If we screamed over the DGB, we need to double the volume now over this.