Within the last couple of days, it was announced that the Department of Homeland Security has “paused” its Disinformation Governance Board for 75 days. According to an article from The New York Times, Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas has “a bipartisan pair of former officials to review the issue of fighting disinformation: Michael Chertoff, who served as the department’s secretary under President George W. Bush, and Jamie S. Gorelick, deputy attorney general under President Bill Clinton.” Mayorkas has asked the former officials to use the 75 days to “prepare recommendations.”
Steven Lee Myers, the author of the NYT article mentioned above, includes the fact that Nina Jankowicz, who was given the nod to lead the board, resigned from the position Wednesday. Myers concluded that with Jankowicz stepping down and the bad press the announcement of the board initially received, that it “makes it unlikely that it will resume operating in anything like its current form.”
Florida Republicans such as Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) and Rep. Brian Mast (R-FL) have come out in support of the pausing of the board’s operation.
Gaetz emphatically claimed,
We’ve killed the Ministry of Truth!
— Matt Gaetz (@mattgaetz) May 18, 2022
“We’ve killed the Ministry of Truth!”
Brian Mast put out an entire video slamming the disinformation board, comparing it to a communist or socialist institution, and said we came “entirely too close to recreating Orwell’s 1984.
Good news for freedom-loving Americans everywhere: Joe Biden’s plan to police “disinformation” is dead. We came entirely too close to recreating Orwell’s 1984. pic.twitter.com/46JEe6pd8T
— Rep. Brian Mast (@RepBrianMast) May 19, 2022
“Good news for freedom-loving Americans everywhere: Joe Biden’s plan to police ‘disinformation’ is dead. We came entirely too close to recreating Orwell’s 1984.”
Mast goes into further detail in the tweet provided above.
