Things are not going well for Fox News, which just agreed to pay $787.5 million to settle a brand undermining libel suit with Dominion Voting Systems, but another suit was filed Wednesday, this one on behalf of Nina Jankowicz, who specializes in is in Russian disinformation.
The New York Times reported Jankowicz’s lawsuit, citing her claims that the “network promoted lies about her that posed serious threats to her safety and damaged her career prospects.”
Jankowicz was the executive director of a three-week Department of Homeland Security arm called the Disinformation Governance Board that was “assigned to coordinate efforts to monitor and address disinformation threats to national security. Right-wing pundits and politicians falsely portrayed her group as part of an Orwellian effort to control the speech and thinking of ordinary Americans.”
In fact, her work didn’t try to control speech or thoughts the way a, I don’t know, “Don’t Say Gay” law or a book ban might.
Ironically or predictably, the DHS board on Russian disinformation fell victim to disinformation, as Jankowicz put it NPR . She told NPR she was “besieged with abuse, harassment and death threats.”
The usual suspects attacked and demonized her: “In 300 mentions over eight months on Fox last year, she was repeatedly demeaned and defamed in highly personal language, the lawsuit alleges. Hosts, including Tucker Carlson, Maria Bartiromo and Sean Hannity, said her job was to “silence anyone who criticizes the Biden administration” and possibly even, as Mr Carlson warned, “let men with guns tell you to shut up.’”
None of that was true, of course. Hence the slander, but they also said she was fired, and that she actually quit because they were targeting her.
Jankowicz is known for her work aimed at strengthening democratic institutions, so it follows that Fox News treated Jankowicz like she was on a hit list.
Their relentless lies about her eventually led to her quitting due to harassment and threats against her, causing “an abrupt halt to the board’s activities” — just as Fox and many Republican lawmakers who participated in the harassment wanted.
In yet another layer of right-wing billionaire bingo, self-proclaimed brainchild Elon Musk, who is an expert at taking other people’s ideas and making them worse but with better marketing, takes Tucker Carlson’s show to Twitter, suggesting it’s his goal to reinforce fascist tendencies. disinformation instead of profit. Fired for defaming companies or people or for being a creep? Twitter wants you! He has also worked to amplify Russian disinformation while defaming experts on Russian propaganda efforts. It’s never enough for these guys apparently, and yes, our government still pays Elon and fund his ventures with our tax dollars. It’s almost like our entire government wants to fail.
In August 2022, DHS terminated the Disinformation Governance Board and revoked its charter. In fact, the The Biden administration has reportedly allowed right-wing strikes to stop this operationin yet another bow to right-wing attacks by a government ostensibly led by people who are not right-wing.
It only worked for a few weeks when it was interrupted after Jankowicz was “the victim of coordinated online attacks as the administration struggled to respond,” as the Washington Post put it at the time.
It’s not that coordinated right-wing attacks are anything new. A year ago, Republicans blocked a domestic terrorism prevention bill on hate crimes and gun reform. Yes, we must not prevent domestic terrorism. How, then, could they plot a new and more successful attack on our government? Will no one think of the terrorists?
The Times pointed out that the division that helped close Fox News with lies set up “to monitor and defend against disinformation from foreign agents seeking to influence elections; cartels that promote people smuggling; and those who want to undermine the government’s public health and safety efforts.
Human trafficking, you know, as Republicans say they oppose and accuse others of it. Foreign agents who want to influence elections: ditto. Undermining public health and safety efforts: ditto. The same. The same.
The most pertinent question at this point is what exactly it is about a division designed to protect the US from Russian disinformation that has made Fox News hosts so frothy and rabid.