Below is my column in the New York Post on the ruling against Nina Jankowicz in her defamation case. It turns out that calling opposing views defamation is no better than calling them disinformation.Here is the column:
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 Jankowicz 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 resigned in 2022. She then 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,” as part of the current growing anti-free speech movement in the United States.
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 page 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 as trying to use defamation as another tool to chill critics and shut down criticism.
It was a telling lawsuit, as Jankowicz simply labeled criticism of her as “defamation” — just as she labeled opposing views “disinformation.”
The objections to her work were called false and she insisted that she was really not seeking to censor people with her work.
Connolly made fast work of that effort. After holding that people are allowed to criticize Jankowicz as protected opinion, the court added:
“I agree that Jankowicz has not pleaded facts from which it could plausibly be inferred that the challenged statements regarding intended censorship by Jankowicz are not substantially true. On the contrary … 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, in coordination with the private sector, 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 testified previously 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” — described as 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.”
As I discuss in my book, 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 Confucius once said that “the beginning of wisdom is the ability to call things by their right names.” This opinion takes a large step toward such wisdom.
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.
Jonathan Turley is a Fox News Media contributor and the Shapiro professor of public interest law at George Washington University. He is the author of “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage.” (Turley appears as a legal analyst on Fox, but nothing in this column is written on behalf of Fox Corp.)
Here is the decision: Jankowicz v. Fox News Network
There are consequences for comitting perjury. Why isn’t this a violation of the First Amendment?
Here you can plumb the depths of the minds and wild imaginations of paranoids.
It’s hard to plumb a level mind
You have to stop and think. What types of governments make it a practice to censor any and all opposition? Cuba, China, Venezuela and now The United States of America under the leadership of King Biden and Queen Kamala. Democracy is indeed on the ballot!
When you finally realize how successful your political opponents are being with militant speech tactics to deceive, intimidate and demoralize….
When it finally dawns on you that the truth takes longer, and costs more to pry open than artful fabrications, and that in the interim the conniving, skilled infowarrior holds all the advantages over the truth-seeker….
When you come to see that public decisions no longer signify “the consent of the governed” because consent was obtained through trickery and deceit…
And, when you finally admit that we cannot go back and “do over” elections and decisions to go to war knowing exactly how we were duped….
Maybe then you’ll begin to recognize that a self-governing free people must somehow erect pluralistic forms of deterrence against waging deceitful infowarfare. By pluralistic, I mean the regulation of the political infospace toward candor and integrity is a power distributed widely throughout society — never able to be concentrated in the hands of any one group whether inside or outside of government or foreign-sourced.
Being for “free speech” without speaking of practical limits on intentional deception and intimidation is walking into the snare of radical, fanatical zealots and narcissistic mischief-makers who view the public square as a personal playground. You are ceding the upper hand to those with PsyOps knowhow who view the public as putty to be molded into shape (e.g. Michael Morell and the 51 “spies that lie”, or Ahmad Chalabi and the Shiite Iraqis who duped Uncle Sam into deposing their arch-enemy Saddam Hussein).
I’m happy the Judge threw out this bogus defamation case. But, this is just the beginning of a long battle to somehow rescue public discourse from vile political manipulation. It’s going to take a lot more than just whining about each incident of public deception after the fact — because that is just stating the problem repetitively.
pbinca is in major deflecting and channeling mode today:I’m happy the Judge threw out this bogus defamation case. But, this is just the beginning of a long battle to somehow rescue public discourse from vile political manipulation…
Meanwhile, the police state fascists in the Biden/Harris DoJ recently imprisoned a Republican meme maker to seven months in prison for a meme posted back in 2016 on his Twitter account that was a satire of Clinton telling her supporters to vote for her by cellphone. Right now, the Biden/Harris campaign has a fraudulent “Trump Project 2025” website up that not only insinuates that it is Trump campaign and Project 2025 as part of his campaign, but the contents are every false trope and lie that Biden and Harris have been putting out there.
Meanwhile, last week, those same police state fascists in the DoJ seized two websites last week, claiming they were Russian election disinformation. The Soviet Democrat’s own election disinformation website is still standing. And whoever Biden and Harris commissioned to create their fake Trump website is not worrying about being imprisoned by their DoJ as Douglass Mackey recently was.
For those who have a problem with the concept, a lower court judge throwing out a feeble defamation lawsuit is nowhere near a DoJ that aggressively uses federal laws and prisons to indict and imprison Republicans for one meme while the Biden/Harris campaign creates entire web domains to present a fraudulent Trump election platform website.
https://www.project2025.org/
That is the real Project 2025 website, run by Republicans. You have to be a troll because I can’t imagine anyone that stupid to believe what your wrote.
IDK Sammy, you’ve said a lot of stupid shit here.
Sammy caught my mistake! That is the real Project 2025 website, run by Republicans. You have to be a troll because I can’t imagine anyone that stupid to believe what your wrote.
That was indeed the wrong link but at the same time I have some satisfaction in knowing that you read posts calling you out as a lying Soviet Democrat Marxist Useful Idiot and you actually check the links in posts that do that.
While congratulating you on catching the fact I edited out the wrong link from the two original links I provided, now go click on this link the same way you clicked on the erroneous original one.
https://www.trumpproject2025.com/
Whose website is that, Sammy? Trump? Trump’s campaign? How about Project 2025’s?
Talking about stupid people believing anything Soviet Democrats tell stupid people like you… whose stupid people voters do you think that website is aimed at?
Meanwhile, how many YEARS did you believe the Soviet Democrats “Russia Dossier”. How many YEARS did you pimp the “Russia Dossier” online?
I correct the errors in my posts with followup posts when my errors are pointed out, Sammy.
You, on the other hand, have yet to correct yourself in any single instance when it was pointed out to you that you were repeating Soviet Democrat lies, even when it was done in a charitable manner suggesting you weren’t lying deliberately, you were simply mistaken.
Any plans for when we might see you correcting yourself as I just have, Soviet Democrat Birthing Person Sammy?
Dont hold your breath.
Sammy is not here to inform or discuss.
That site is run by the Trump PAC. It is also real. It is there to lie to the people about Trump’s connections to P2025.
Sammy lied: That site is run by the Trump PAC. It is also real. It is there to lie to the people about Trump’s connections to P2025.
Sammy is either a bad liar or a Soviet Democrat USELESS Idiot. I would suggest to normal Americans that Birthing Person Sammy is both of those things.
Do a Whois inquiry on any Trump or Trump campaign website; the results will show it is owned and web mastered by the Trump organization and campaign.
Now do a Whois inquiry on the Trumpproject2025 website and you find that the details of who owns it, who administers it, and who authored it are all hidden as being private information. Weird how Trump wouldn’t openly show that was a campaign website as well.
Equally weird that Trump and Project 2025 would create website that lies about Project 2025 suggests for leadership and Trump both.
I reminded you Sammy, I’m happy to correct myself when I make an error and post the wrong web address. I asked when you were going to do the same after somebody pointed out that you were lying or very badly informed. Clearly, it would be fatal if anyone decided to hold their breath to see if you have any human dignity or integrity and would admit to lies or even just mistakes.
“Adorned in aviator glasses, the president went on his official @JoeBiden X account to shake his finger at you, the viewer and say, “Project 2025 will destroy America. Look it up.”
He displays the Trump website, distorted by adding a “s” — Trumpsproject2025.com.
That site takes voters to list all the awful things that Mr. Trump says he will do. The problem is, none of them are his campaign positions. Mr. Biden is a bad liar. He’s also not good at bot-type disinformation.
“Takes away reproductive freedom nationwide.” Mr. Trump does not propose a ban on abortion.
“Uses the presidency for revenge on Trump’s political and personal enemies,” trumpsproject2025.com says. Mr. Trump does not propose this. Mr. Biden is actually doing this.
The website explains Mr. Trump has used Justice to target his political adversaries. In 2022, Mr. Biden said he was using his powers to personally “making sure” Mr. Trump could not run again. His Justice Department has indicted Mr. Trump twice.
Mr. Biden’s bot farm also says Mr. Trump is “terminating your health care and cutting your social security.” Not true.
These are more bot-type lies that Mr. Garland should investigate for interfering in an election with a bogus website.”
The inability to post more than one web link, compounded by the inability to edit a post.
The proper link to the fraudulent Obama/Biden “Trump Project 2025” website: https://www.trumpproject2025.com/
That link is real also and run by a Trump PAC.
Dear Mr. Turley, once again I tip my hat to GEB and his excellent comments on Mr. Biden and the Democrats. As far as the “disinformation czar” she was toast even before she began her job or tried to get a few bucks out of the media. Hopefully, she will go away, perhaps to a local dinner theater where she may sing to her heart is content!
The photo attached to the article always reminds me of Richard Keil from the James Bond movies.
Nothing more apt than the censorship czar suing a media company for speaking something she didn’t want to hear. This is the essence of this woman down to her very bones. After the fiasco here I believe she went over seas to take her grifting censorship trade to somewhere where her Scary Poppins routine wasn’t as well known.
@hullbobby
To the best of my knowledge she went to Britain and is assisting in their censorship efforts over there where they do not have our Constitution. Do not kid yourselves about this being a globalist thing.
‘Centre for Information Resilience
In September 2022, Jankowicz announced the launch of The Hypatia Project, which she conducted at the UK-based Centre for Information Resilience (CIR). The project’s stated aim is to combat gendered abuse and disinformation online.[31] As part of her work with CIR, which was partly funded by grants from the UK government, Jankowicz had registered as a foreign agent in the U.S. in November 2022. She wrote in her registration that she “supervises research, executes business strategy, oversees the establishment of CIR’s research, communicates with the media, and briefs individuals and officials on CIR’s research.”[32][33] She was the Vice President at the CIR from September 2022 through April 2024,[34] at which point she cofounded the American Sunlight Project.[35]’
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nina_Jankowicz
James: you are sooo right.
Moreover, ““The American Sunlight Project has been established as a nonprofit under the section of the Internal Revenue Code that allows it greater leeway to lobby than tax-exempt charities known as 501(c)(3)s. It also does not have to disclose its donors, which Ms. Jankowicz declined to do, though she said the project had initial commitments of $1 million in donations.” https://electionlawblog.org/?p=142574
The common saying is the remedy to bad free speech is more free speech. But apparently when it comes to calling out Republicans for their lies, it is necessary to silence the critics.
Let me know about Republican lies after you review the Trump pee tape and Russia collusion Steele/Clinton dossier hoax. When you’re done there let me know on the inflation numbers and jobs created and for the follow up the whereabouts of the billions of dollars sent to “kicking Russian ass” Ukraine. We know where some of it is, Biden’s offshore accounts!
If you have ANY proof of money going to Ukraine ending up in Biden’s offshore accounts, please provide it to the House investigation committee. The 400+ US military and government IG personnel specifically tasked to oversee US aid to Ukraine also need this information. You seem to be the sole source of this valuable detailed information.
Let’s see where this reported $50M went, why does Biden have laddered shell companies and offshore accounts? We know where to look, time will tell.
Joe Biden is mentally competent lie.
That lie, the Biden admin, MSM told us, gaslight us, was the biggest lie, the biggest scandal of the century.
Run bu the Marxist Cabal. No votes Harris WILL be queen, not one vote cast in a primary.
–the biggest lie, the biggest scandal of the century
Why do you continue to peddle this false claim?
It’s NOT the biggest of either of those. Why are YOU lying?
Upstate regularly doubles down when he’s wrong, like Dennis, George, and Gigi.
It’s been glaringly obvious that Biden has been in cognitive decline since before the 2020 election. As I recall, Hunter actually praised his father for beating dementia around that time. We all know it’s the top advisors from the Obama/Biden era that are running the chit show. Same policy same failure same destruction of our Constitutional Republic. The media is the propaganda machine for the left, go on google and read a series of headlines. Beyond skewed, Upstate is spot on.
Traveler,
Thank you for pointing out the obvious to our low information, no information voters.
Because Biden’s health issues have been a ‘bigger’ scandal than
9-11, Saddam has WMDs, Russian Collusion, Snowden and Assange/Wikileaks files, etc. ?
Upstate letting others answer for him again. And still getting it wrong.
With the exception of wmd’s Those weren’t scandals, ya douche.
Russian interference is the correct term. The only scandal involving russian collusion was the fake dossier, alpha bank hoax, and fbi fisa malfeasance.
Sammy, Lyin’ Like A Proud Biden, tried this:
But apparently when it comes to calling out Republicans for their lies, it is necessary to silence the critics.
Like when Republicans lied that the Biden Bribery Laptop belonged to The First Felon Gun Criminal Crackhead Son, so despite knowing for years that the laptop did belong to the Crackhead Kid, those Republican voices were silenced in social media by the FBI
But the scary thing is that the leaders you worship are police state fascists, Sammy. When you see a Babylon Bee type satirical meme on Twitter that mocks Hillary Clinton’s campaign ads aimed at her political sycophants like yourself, your idea of “calling out Republicans for their lies” is to indict and imprison them for daring to post that meme.
Meanwhile, a carefully crafted website has just been put up, not satire, but a deliberate attempt to deceive Americans into believing that Project 2025 is Trump’s election platform. See any silencing of your Soviet Democrat leadership’s lies, Sammy? The website is still up.
https://www.project2025.org/
My error with the web link above, all on me (but PLEASE at least give us the ability to edit our posts, whether for errors, grammer, spelling).
The proper link to the Bribery Biden & Cackling Kamela Cheap Fake website that portrays itself of being from the Trump campaign with Project 2025 is:
https://www.TrumpProject2025.com/
@Sammy Metamucil
Lie count from the debate
Trump 30
Biden 61
Biden had 15 in the first 6 minutes. His rate of lying only slowed down because he forgot how to talk.
Speaking of censorship….will Turley express concern about this,
https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/social-media/nadler-urges-investigation-x-restriction-kamala-harris-account-rcna163236
It seems X is censoring followers of Kamala Harris Campaign on the platform.
George, you have no proof of censorship. You are a liar.
Neither did Trump, crazy huh? That didn’t stop him from making wild claims either.
So you admit its just a wild claim.
You seem to specialize in those.
George
Trump was deplatformed on both Twitter and Facebook, that’s censorship first order. The Obama Administration also spied and wiretapped his campaign HQ calls. Both claims are true and easily evidenced.
Trump also made the “wild claim” that his campaign was spied on.
Well I think we have adequately discussed this somewhat lightweight column today. Since we are talking about some legal definitions I think we and the Professor should have a frank discussion of defrauding the public. Actually after the Black Sox scandal of 1919 the offending players were tried for “conspiracy to defraud the public” but found innocent and yet were still banned from baseball for life.
Yet we are now seeing an expose’ of one of the greatest frauds in American History.
As leaks and statements from congressman (democrats) and others build up we see a fraud that has been perpetrated over at least the last 3 1/2 years and is still going on. The Wall Street Journal has laid out this schedule of events quite well, and I suggest people read it. The president has not met the House Democratic Caucus since 10/2021 after a bizarre and muddled discussion of legislation. More physicians not associated with the White House are commenting on the obvious decline of an impaired president. This was apparent to a Florida Neurosurgeon who specialized in neuro-cognition who thought the president showed problems in 2020 and steadily declined since. We saw staged and limited press conferences with the president carrying lists of reporters to call up (with their pictures) and their questions, reading every word on the teleprompter in speeches (including directions), declining gait and coordination, wandering off like a child who slipped his leash and incomprehensible speaking, unable to remember names of people he’s talking to. Comments of Allies who had noted significant declines since 2022 , and on and on. And then there was the debate.
This “Robust 81 yr old white male” (medical speak) with “no significant illness” was rubber stamped just 6 months ago.
This has the appearance of fraud and implicated in this apparent fraud is the Biden Family, the White House Staff, the White House medical staff, The House and Senate leadership of the democrats, the Justice dept and with collusion of the mainstream media. I feel this requires investigation and likely indictments, especially if there is significant evidence that the president was incompetent and this was covered up. This is so bad that one would be hard pressed to believe any statement that comes out of the White House and any of its minions.
If I were former President Trump, I would make this a centerpiece of his campaign, along with all the other shortcomings of this administration’s policies. I’m would disdain any suggestions for a debate with Kamala Harris until the President steps down from the office and I might even then still refuse to debate. When you knock out the other contender in the first round, does the losing side get to bring in another boxer for the second round. I think not.
These people appeared to hazard the country for their own personal political power.
Disgusting is hardly enough of a discription. Appalling might be better. To bad we cannot band them all from public life till the universe goes cold.
It is Nice to see a Democrat Judge, who knows and understands the law, slap down hard on the DEM’s/Bernie Sanders Radical Left and the Disinformation Crowd/Censors, such as Ninna Mary Popkins. But, they will not quit they will keep trying until New MGMT in Washington comes in. But, the censorship crowd will still be with us, until they find something else to make $$$ off of.
The “Disinformation Governance Board” — sends chills down my spine. Democrats praising Biden for his “service to the country” must be blind and deaf not to see how this divisive old man tried to take away the most basic rights of his opponents. Biden is now experiencing a humiliating defeat, not by the people he tried to censor, but by his own party. Let’s hope the next president — whether Democrat or Republican — doesn’t go down that path.
Deport the female cur to Cuba, or, better yet, to Communist China, where her career possibilities would be unlimited.
Partly, the appeal of trying to control “information” is that it creates a veneer of “science” (another of the favotite words of Leftists). In modern physics, the concept of “information” is regarded as one of the keys to understanding of reality. For example:
“Physics is a field that is supposed to study real stuff. By real, I mean things like matter and energy. Matter is, of course, the kind of stuff you can hold in your hand. Energy may seem a little more abstract, but its reality is pretty apparent, appearing in the form of motion or gravity or electromagnetic fields.
What has become apparent recently, however, is the importance to physics of something that seems somewhat less real: information. From black holes to quantum mechanics to understanding the physics of life, information has risen to become a principal concern of many physicists in many domains.”
https://bigthink.com/13-8/information-central-physics-universe/#:~:text=
Our leftist friends like to think of themselves a cutting-edge scientists. At its heart, leftism is vanity.
Courts are the last bastion of freedom to be compromised in any State that claims itself to be a “democracy.” Ours, except for the 9th District, seem to be holding the line. Let’s hope enough citizens can realize what one party is doing to our freedoms — not that I trust the Republican Party without question. Right now, the GOP is the better. albeit highly imperfect, option. Let’s give Trump the Presidency and the House and Senate and see if they can put the country on a track where government gets the heck out of our social and economic lives while keeping us safe internally and externally.
Signed,
An “active foreign affairs” libertarian with no Party to love
“Let’s give Trump the Presidency and the House and Senate and see if they can put the country on a track where government gets the heck out of our social and economic lives while keeping us safe internally and externally.”
Yes, let us do that, but let us also not forget or neglect to keep a damned close eye on them after putting them in power, lest they begin to quash our essential liberties in different ways to implement their own agenda. I am a lifelong government Skeptic, and, if government is indeed a necessary evil, extensive checks and balances, including the distribution of political power among opposing parties, is crucial to keeping it reigned in. The problems with that compromise include that, as of late, members of nominally opposing parties have colluded to their own advantage, and our disadvantage. The populist Republic wing that is made up of dedicated supporters of Trump are, in effect, a new party opposed to the legacy statists, and will hopefully prove to be capable of largely removing the latter from power, but those populists are in no way immune to the kind of abuses of which their prospective predecessors have been guilty. Remain aware!
“RepublicAN wing”
Well there are good democrats out there. I have never argued otherwise. My closest friend for 45 years is a liberal democrat (his wife is another matter), my older sister is a faithful democrat and I know others. I do like the Judges’s logic and his somewhat biting clarification of malinformation, defamation, and censorship. He would seem to be a person you could have a reasonable conversation with.
so when does the GOP Defund Democrats and jail their criminals
As Democrats fund Rich Democrats and JAIL non-criminal Republicans?
“Holy ‘you are what you eat’, Batman!!
So there remain one or two sane Democrats officials? Hmmm.
LOL — Keep plugging your “book,” Turley.
you go to a guy’s website, read his articles to comment to mock him about is book?
Wow…delusional democrat alert
I’ve read Professor Turley’s excellent book. I had no idea free speech had such a long and storied history. “Anonymous” wants to enjoy the benefits of Professor Turley’s knowledge . . . while standing in the shadows criticizing him.
“Anonymous” wants to enjoy the benefits of Professor Turley’s knowledge . . . while standing in the shadows criticizing him.
….otherwise known as a coward
That he spends all of his waking moments cataloguing our comments, with dates and times, knows all of the names of commenters, the number of times these individuals comment, mentions our personal careers, family members and religious beliefs, says one thing loud and clear: INCEL. No one wants to be with him so he lives on this forum. saf
Says the guy posting…anonymously. Oh, the irony.
let freedom ring