New York Post

Censor Outed

Disinfo czar’s loss is a First Amendment win

FOR free speech advocates, there are few images more chilling than that of Nina Jankowicz singing her now infamous tune as “the Mary Poppins of Disinforma­tion.”

The woman who would become known as the “Disinforma­tion Czar” sang a cheerful TikTok parody of “Supercalif­ragilistic­expialidoc­ious” to rally people to the cause of censorship.

When the press caught wind of President Biden’s plan to appoint Janowicz as head of the Department of Homeland Security’s new “disinforma­tion board,” Fox News said she “intended to censor Americans’ speech.”

The backlash was swift. Plans for the board were suspended and Jankowicz re- signed. In 2022, she sued Fox News for defamation.

On Monday, the case was dismissed. But Chief Judge Colm Connolly didn’t just say it was legally unfounded — he demolished the claims of figures like Jankowicz that they are really not engaged in censorship.

I was one of Jankowicz’s earliest and most vocal critics and she is discussed in my new book, “The Indispensa­ble Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage.” The Biden Administra­tion has coordinate­d with social media and targeted the revenue of conservati­ve, libertaria­n and other sites.

These figures gleefully worked to silence others with the support of millions in public dollars for years. Yet, when exposed to criticism, they often portrayed themselves as victims with an obliging and supportive media.

They all took a lead from Mary Poppins who “taught us the most wonderful word!” In this case, the word is “disinforma­tion” and it is certainly not connected to “censorship.” Rather, you are supposed to call the barring, blacklisti­ng and throttling of opposing views “content moderation.”

Jankowicz took that not-so-noble-lie to a new level. After losing her job, she launched a campaign soliciting funds to sue those who called her a censor.

I was highly critical of these efforts to use defamation as another tool to chill critics and shut down criticism. It was a telling lawsuit: Jankowicz simply labeled criticism of her as “defamation” — just as she labeled opposing views as “disinforma­tion.”

The objections to her work were called false and she insisted that she was really not seeking to censor people with her work.

Chief Judge Connolly made fast work of that effort. After holding that people are allowed to criticize Jankowicz as protected opinion, the court added:

“Censorship is commonly understood to encompass efforts to scrutinize and examine speech in order to suppress certain communicat­ions.

“The Disinforma­tion Governance Board was formed precisely to examine citizens’ speech and . . . identify ‘misinforma­tion,’ ‘disinforma­tion,’ and ‘malinforma­tion.’ . . . that objective is fairly characteri­zed as a form of censorship.”

Of course, in America’s burgeoning censorship infrastruc­ture, the entire decision is likely to be viewed as some form of disinforma­tion, misinforma­tion or malinforma­tion. After all, even true facts can be deemed censorable by the Biden-Harris Administra­tion.

I’ve testified before Congress on how Jen Easterly, who heads the Cybersecur­ity and Infrastruc­ture

Security Agency, extended her agency’s mandate over critical infrastruc­ture to include “our cognitive infrastruc­ture.”

The resulting censorship efforts included combating “malinforma­tion” — informatio­n “based on fact, but used out of context to mislead, harm, or manipulate.” Thus, referring to Jankowicz as engaged in censorship on this defunct Board may be true, but could still be treated as “malinforma­tion.”

These setbacks are unlikely to deter the corporate, academic and government figures aligned in our current anti-free speech movement. Millions of government and private dollars are flowing to universiti­es and organizati­ons engaged in targeting or blacklisti­ng individual­s and groups. It is now a growing industry unto itself.

The new censors have gone corporate and mainstream. Silencing others is now a calling, a profession. They have literally made free speech into a commodity that can be packaged and controlled for profit. Yet as Confucius once said, “The beginning of wisdom is the ability to call things by their right names.”

If figures like Jankowicz want to continue to make money silencing others, we can at least call them for what we believe they are: censors.