Victory Lap for Free Speech: Jim Jordan’s House Judiciary Committee Session
As he called the House Judiciary Committee into session on a cold and snowy February day in Washington, DC, Chairman Jim Jordan was ready to take a victory lap. American free speech had been critically threatened, and now it was saved — in large part thanks to him and his committee.
The State of Free Speech: A Historical Context
“What a difference a few years make,” the Republican congressman for Ohio’s 4th district told those present. “Four years ago, President Trump was banned from all platforms: Twitter, Facebook, YouTube. Today, he has his own platform. He’s back on all the others. And of course, he’s president of the United States.”
Donald Trump was expelled from the major social networks in the final days of his first presidency, following the January 6th insurrection. Tens of thousands of his supporters were banned, too, for pushing the QAnon conspiracy theory or supporting the violent overthrow of the US government.
To those who had sounded the alarm on disinformation and radicalization online, these bans were a belated victory of sorts — after what they had warned of had come to pass. To Trump and his supporters, they were the ultimate proof that liberals sought to censor conservatives online.
Jordan’s Fight Against Censorship
Jordan was a leader of the Republican effort to fight back against this “censorship,” bringing the resources of the House Judiciary Committee — and its subpoena powers — to bear for the cause since 2023. His opening remarks on that day were anything but bluster. Over that time, he had racked up win after win against what had become known as a “Censorship-Industrial Complex” — the title of the day’s evidence session.
Big tech had been censoring Americans on the orders of the White House, he told the room. “You don’t have to take my word for it. Mark Zuckerberg wrote the committee a letter, told us it was going on.” He had — and a few months later, shortly before Trump’s second inauguration, Zuckerberg promised to swap sides in the censorship wars, abolishing Facebook’s use of fact-checkers and changing its global moderation rules to allow more widespread use of ethnic and anti-LGBTQ slurs, among other changes.
The committee had notched up no shortage of smaller victories along the way, which Jordan relayed with relish. His committee had helped to shut down academic units, NGOs, and coalitions of advertisers. All of them were now “out of business.” “What a difference a few years can make,” Jordan said, satisfied.
The Role of Matt Taibbi
The day’s star witness was Matt Taibbi, an independent journalist and onetime liberal darling, who had been among those people handpicked by Elon Musk to publish revelations from the so-called Twitter Files, exposing — as they saw it — how concerns about “misinformation” had been exploited to censor conservative and dissenting voices on the platform.
Taibbi and company were calling for the government to do more in the name of free speech — defunding any efforts funding fact-checkers or misinformation research, and similarly ending US government funding of media across the world, which they dismiss as “propaganda.” Over the last few years, Musk, Jordan, and Taibbi had created something of an unstoppable machine: Jordan had the power to subpoena evidence, call witnesses, and create reports. Taibbi and others could testify at those hearings and report on them, as well as on material provided by Musk. Musk, in turn, could launch lawsuits based on the findings of Jordan’s committees and on the reporting of Taibbi and others.
The Dilemma of Free Speech Advocates
To those people caught in that machine, though, things looked very different. From their perspective, they had been trying to protect America’s free speech. During the heights of covid, false information that stopped people from getting vaccinated or from masking, or which made them try unsafe “cures,” could prove fatal. The January 6th protests showed that political misinformation could be a life-and-death matter, too.
And now, the people who had tried to force social networks to take these issues seriously found themselves condemned in Congress, blazoned across Fox News, facing death threats and the end of their professional careers.
The Growing Divide on Free Speech
What started with a row over fact-checking and moderation of particular stories on social media — the Hunter Biden laptop, the Wuhan lab leak theory of covid, the QAnon conspiracy theory — has turned into a worldwide battle on the nature and limits of free speech online, covering anywhere and everywhere the government interacts with social media companies, or where it funds anything relating to media. Even the future of the transatlantic alliance is at stake after JD Vance accused Europe of becoming an enemy to free speech.
But at its core, this is still a bloody fight over what is and isn’t true — with claims and counter-claims thrown in every direction. At various points, people involved have accused one another of being former CIA spies or PR flacks for Hugo Chávez, of having flung a custard pie laden with horse semen into the face of a rival, and more. (Almost all of the above turned out to be — more or less — true.)
The Disinformation Governance Board: A Turning Point
The roots of the row go back decades, but if its modern iteration has a clear starting point, it would be a three-sentence missive tucked near the bottom of Playbook on April 27th, 2022. The Department of Homeland Security was setting up a Disinformation Governance Board, and a woman named Nina Jankowicz would head it.
That announcement would prove enough for all hell to break loose. By the end of the day, a heavily pregnant Jankowicz would be sourcing security cameras for her home while her husband secured the doors. She would, within a few short days, become known across the media as Joe Biden’s chief censor.
The Perspective of a Disinformation Expert
But before we continue, a disclosure: I am not an entirely impartial observer of this battle. In 2017, I wrote a book, Post-Truth: How Bullshit Conquered the World, on the dangers of misinformation and disinformation, which led to invitations to speak to policymakers on how the issue might be tackled. In 2018, I agreed to give a talk to journalists from Eastern Europe on Russian disinformation tactics. This particular engagement led me down a path that would inform my understanding of the complex world of media and disinformation.
Jankowicz, a registered Democrat and a former Fulbright fellow, was a disinformation expert and the author of How to Lose the Information War. She was approached to help the Department of Homeland Security coordinate responses to disinformation threats that were related to national security.
Her job as executive director of the Disinformation Governance Board would be to convene a group from across the department to consider these issues and how to respond. However, limited resources and the chaotic nature of her role hindered her efforts.
The Fallout of Public Response
The moment Jankowicz’s role was announced, a media firestorm erupted. Despite her expertise, she was effectively silenced by the government and the vitriol of conservative media outlets, which portrayed her as an absurd villain.
Just as Jordan, Taibbi, and others found success in the anti-censorship narrative, those on the front lines of countering disinformation faced existential threats to their careers.
“I think … they genuinely hadn’t thought [it] through,” Jankowicz reflected on the government’s response. It became painfully clear that the fight against disinformation had been politicized.
As the fight against misinformation escalated, Jankowicz’s position quickly became untenable. The Disinformation Governance Board was disbanded before it ever convened, confirming the fears that had surrounded its inception.
The Broader Implications of the Disinformation War
The backlash faced by Jankowicz and others involved in research and media led to a broader examination of what constitutes censorship and free speech in America. As organizations and individuals began to reassess their stances, the political landscape shifted dramatically.
Taibbi’s testimony calling for the dismantlement of censorship frameworks sparked ongoing debates about the roles various entities play regarding free speech and misinformation. This led to a chilling effect on investigative journalism and research initiatives designed to combat the spread of misinformation.
In this rapidly changing environment, the narrative around free speech has become polarized. The once-unified front against disinformation has been fragmented, with many engaging in a realpolitik surrounding the interpretation of truth.
Today, Jankowicz, along with other experts like Renée DiResta, and the institutions they represented find themselves in a challenging position. The crusade against disinformation has not only targeted individual researchers but also dismantled organizations that were once seen as pillars of public trust.
As this article reveals the complex implications of the ongoing disinformation wars, it serves as a reminder of how free speech, information integrity, and the battle over what constitutes truth are deeply intertwined. With each passing day, this evolving narrative compels us all to reconsider our understanding of free speech, information, and the role of technology in shaping societal dialogues.
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Image Credit: www.theverge.com
