Pirate's Cove

The NY Times seems pretty upset that the Ministry of Truth was shot down in flames (you can read the piece at Yahoo, as well)

Disinformation Has Become Another Untouchable Problem in Washington

The memo that reached the top of the Department of Homeland Security in September could not have been clearer about its plan to create a board to monitor national security threats caused by the spread of dangerous disinformation.

The department, it said, “should not attempt to be an all-purpose arbiter of truth in the public arena.”

Yet when Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas announced the disinformation board in April, Republican lawmakers and conservative commentators denounced it as exactly that, calling it an Orwellian attempt to stifle dissenting views. So did some critics from the left, who questioned the powers that such an office might wield in the hands of future Republican administrations.

Within weeks, the new board was dismantled — put on “pause,” officially — undone in part by forces it was meant to combat, including distortions of the board’s intent and powers.

There is wide agreement across the federal government that coordinated disinformation campaigns threaten to exacerbate public health emergencies, stoke ethnic and racial divisions and even undermine democracy itself. The board’s fate, however, has underscored how deeply partisan the issue has become in Washington, making it nearly impossible to consider addressing the threat.

It could have been something that would have worked had it been capable of taking a light touch, but, a) not with far left moonbat Nina Jankowicz in charge (her picture is featured in the article), and b) federal agencies have their own press outlets. We don’t need some central department deciding what is “disinformation” and what isn’t, especially when we’ve seen a bunch of mule fritters coming from the federal government that was not correct, particularly on COVID. The government itself puts out plenty of incorrect, overly-partisan, and crap information. We don’t need a Ministry Of Truth strolling through social media and deciding what to attack.

Heck, elected Democrats were a font of “disinformation”: would Nina’s Orwellian agency go after them, or, would this simply be against Republicans? Democrats spent 4 years pushing Russia Russia Russia, even though it was false.

Opposition came not only from the right, however.

Three rights organizations — Protect Democracy, the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University and the Electronic Frontier Foundation — welcomed the department’s recognition of the scale of the problem but cited the department’s “history of flouting the Constitution in flagrant ways” as reason enough to be wary.

“In the wrong hands, such a board would be a potent tool for government censorship and retaliation,” they wrote in a letter to Mayorkas, calling for the department to reconsider the board.

If there’s a chance that the board could do wrong Constitutionally, it doesn’t need to exist. And, we all know it would have done wrong. That was the point. Look at what Democrats want now

Democrats seek to boost media literacy for students, veterans with two new bills

A trio of Democrats introduced two bicameral bills aimed at boosting media literacy skills for students and veterans by providing funding for nationwide educational programs.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), a lead sponsor of the bills in the Senate, said Thursday the effort will “help combat disinformation and misinformation campaigns that seek to manipulate perceptions and sow division.”

“These bills will provide students and veterans with the skills they need to make informed decisions about online content and protect themselves from exploitation,” Klobuchar said in a statement.

The bills, introduced with Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), and by Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) in the House, would together provide $40 million to federal agencies to fund education programs to improve media literacy for American students and veterans.

So, a Democratic Party initiative to provide a Modern Socialist world view on things they disagree with, what they call disinformation, regardless of how real it is. Attempting to get young kids to buy into that leftist viewpoint. This, at best, skirts the line that says “Congress shall make no law …. or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press;… and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” It may cross that line in practice. These attempts at thought control piggyback on what they were trying to do with Net Neutrality.