Disinformation - The begining of the end for the democrats?

By Ellis Asher

Photo by Joshua Sukoff on Unsplash

The Disinformation Governance Board.

Those are the words you are probably going to start hearing increasingly often as we approach the US Mid-Term Elections.

It was announced last Wednesday, 27th April, however my first exposure to the newly formed board was upon reading this tweet:

[@townhallcom - Jen Psaki (White House Press Secretary: The DHS Disinformation Governance Board "will operate in a nonpartisan and apolitical manner."]

The move to introduce a state-sanctioned fact checker seems like a stark contradiction for the "land of the free", but in a statement on Thursday, the department promised to "protect privacy, civil rights, and civil liberties" as part of its duties.

At a time when government trust is at an all-time low, it feels like the thin edge of the wedge for a government with lower approval ratings than some regimes.

Whilst the board itself has refused to specify the scope of its activities, which is always what you want to see from a shady governmental department whose mandate includes silencing people and restricting freedoms (he said sarcastically), Jen Psaki, the white house press secretary gave a more definitive answer.

"Things that would incite violent extremism, human traffickers, trans-national criminal organisations, any efforts that malign foreign influence, anything that would endanger individuals during emergencies- so a lot of this is about work that people would not see every day".

These things seem reasonable, it's established in law that things such as human trafficking and international criminal organisations are illegal, and most people would agree the networks that facilitate them are morally wrong, or at minimum carry some moral weight.

However, the people making the decisions on what falls into these categories now have a board, and a mandate, and are to be overseen by an inherently political organisation, the United States Department of Homeland Security, a federal department.

For instance, on January 6th protestors entered the capitol building in Washington DC, the event resulted in one woman being shot. The events that led up to this are still up for debate, however because of this the then president, Donald Trump, was ousted from essentially all social media platforms.

Were a government entity able to indirectly make decisions like these, with this much power, Trump may have been able to force the organisations to maintain his presence.

The exact same goes for his opposition, current president, Joe Biden, who could use the department to forcefully silence opposition (indirectly of course).

With approval ratings already scraping the bottom, being one of the least popular presidencies in recent history, will the introduction of an institution with the ability to peddle an already unpopular narrative prove too much for the Democrats come the mid-terms?

That will remain to be seen.