Kaia Nisser & Andreas Önnerfors, Fojo Media Institute © 2024
“Demonized by the American right, banned by Putin’s Russia, undeterred” – this self proclaimed description summarises the experiences of global disinformation expert Nina Jankowicz. In an exclusive interview with Kaia Nisser and Andreas Önnerfors from Fojo Media Institute, Jankowicz provided a detailed account of her career, the challenges she has faced and her ongoing efforts to combat disinformation. The most important message: we are in this together. There is no quick fix; no magic silver bullet to restore a productive societal discourse; what we need is a “community-based approach and getting back to basics and putting people face-to-face across tables to talk about things”.
We met Jankowicz about a week after the recent US presidential elections in early November. She was in Stockholm to present a keynote at the philanthropic Beijer-Foundation’s 50th Anniversary. Considering her books such as How to Lose the Information War: Russia, Fake News, and the Future of Conflict (2020) and How to Be a Woman Online: Surviving Abuse and Harassment and How to Fight Back (2022), our conversation promised to provide with important insights into the fractured information landscape of our times, not least in the light of the recent US elections. Already in February 2024, she had published an article in Foreign Affairs titled “The Coming Flood of Disinformation. How Washington Gave Up on the Fight Against Falsehoods”. Here Jankowicz painted a gloomy picture of what lies ahead of us during the next few years: “an information ecosystem that is more ripe for manipulation than ever”.
Fojo’s Stockholm offices are located in an old 17th-century palace just opposite the royal castle. As Sweden celebrates more than 250 years of The Freedom of the Press Act as a constitutional law, it seems strange to imagine that deliberative democracy could decay from inside – fuelled by outside manipulation. But recent revelations such as troll factories operating in the shadows of populist politics, a coordinated information influence campaign against the Swedish social services, Quran burnings and divisions related to global conflicts reveal significant cracks in the formation of public opinion. Thus we were curious what light Jankowicz could shed on such a context from her rich experience in the field.
First, some basics for those who are not familiar with her exceptional career. Jankowicz began as an expert on Russia and managed programmes providing democratic assistance to Russia and Belarus for the National Democratic Institute (NDI). Her focus shifted significantly towards disinformation during the first 2014 Ukraine war. She was in Kyiv on a Fulbright grant in 2016-2017, during which she concentrated on disinformation, especially after Trump’s election. This period marked a pivotal shift in her career towards disinformation research as it emphasised the lessons from Eastern Europe for the American public. In 2020 Jankowicz was appointed to lead the Disinformation Governance Board (DGB) at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The board aimed to coordinate disinformation policy within DHS with the imperative to ensure that civil rights and liberties were protected. However, her appointment was heavily politicised which led to personal attacks and threats. The DGB was disbanded before it had even started its activities. In response to these challenges, Jankowicz founded the American Sunlight Project (ASP) which is devoted to maintaining the fight against disinformation: a core theme of our conversation. How was it possible that her work to combat disinformation was derailed? How and by whom was Jankowicz attacked? And what is on the horizon? We have divided our conversation into two parts: the first regarding the situation roughly before the US elections in 2024 and the second exploring the challenges and potential solutions of the future.
After grabbing a coffee in the lush reception suite of the Fleming-palace, with huge mirrors and doors adorned with winged golden sphinxes and windows facing the royal palace, we came to a meeting room aptly called ‘Artery’. We sat down together to discuss how to keep the oxygen of trustworthy information circulating in our body politic.
Banned by Putin’s Russia
We began by asking Jankowicz about the statement on her website: ‘Demonized by the American right, banned by Putin’s Russia, undeterred.’ We were curious about its background and how a Swedish audience could grapple with the recent US presidential elections through hearing her story. To Jankowicz, “the Russia portion … explains how I got to the demonized by the right portion”, thereby understanding disinformation as a global phenomenon with global repercussions. When the first war in Ukraine began in 2014, she “felt a draw to go out to the region” since “there was a lot of work to be done and a story to be told about the way that social media was influencing that”. While in Kyiv in 2016 and 2017 Jankowicz realized there were overlaps between her work and the election of Trump in 2016, which “really changed how we thought about disinformation”. Most critically, “it was clear to me a long time before, I don’t want to say that I was a Cassandra, but I recognized that Russia was doing things on the internet that the West wasn’t quite prepared for”. It emerged that Russia was painting the presence of various US programs in the area “as if we were doing nefarious activities”. Jankowicz pleaded with her management that “we needed to be more proactive in our communications so that we didn’t cede the narrative ground to Russia”. For Jankowicz, 2016 was a watershed moment: “Trump was elected and the whole world woke up to the threat of Russian disinformation or influence online”.
Jankowicz explains how this shaped her view: “what I was seeing in Kyiv, the things that were working and the things that weren’t working were really important to bring to bear for the American public. And so I just started writing and researching and talking about the lessons that we could learn from Eastern Europe”.
But how could these insights be translated to a domestic context? During some time spent at a nonpartisan think tank in Washington called the Wilson Center, at the same time as Biden was elected in 2020, she got a call from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS, “a bit of a Frankenstein of an agency that includes many different government departments … that have to do with the security”). DHS wanted “somebody to come and run policy about disinformation in the department and they called this thing that they wanted me to lead the Disinformation Governance Board [DGB], very bad name to anybody who is outside of government”. The intention with the DGB “in their kind of myopic governmental view” was “to govern how the department did its work about disinformation, making sure that it was protecting civil rights, civil liberties, and fundamental freedoms, making sure that there were guardrails on, making sure that the different agencies were talking to one another, because often they were not only in different buildings, you know, the right hand really didn’t know what the left hand was doing”.
From the outside, these aims seem to be laudable. In Sweden, a similar initiative was taken with the formation of the Psychological Defence Agency (MPF) in 2022. One difference to the US, it appears, was that the DHS was not particularly transparent about the DGB, as Jankowicz told us: “They didn’t really talk about those key pillars of what I had been assigned to do, you know, protecting fundamental rights, freedoms, et cetera”. Moreover the key issue, “to deal with disinformation about Russia … had become a lightning rod in American politics”.
Demonised by the American Right
This is where it escalates: “the Republicans saw a chance to really demonize me and politicize this topic, which shouldn’t have been something that was politicized”. Jankowicz’ standpoint is clear, “disinformation has a huge effect on American national security. It had an effect on public health just a few years before that”. During spring of 2022, as the US was slowly returning from measures to counter COVID-19, the DGB ignited the emotions of the right: “Senators, members of Congress were all going after me and they were going after me in very personal ways. They claimed that the board was going to be a ministry of truth. They claimed that it was going to censor people. That wasn’t true. DHS didn’t really respond. They kind of just were like deer in headlights”.
Jankowicz’s life turned upside down; she was harassed and received credible threats while being pregnant; “people were saying things about my unborn child”. A security consultant advised the family that they should leave their home, which they decided against, “because as a pregnant lady, you just have too much stuff to bring with you”. Jankowicz was targeted with a viciousness all the more potent because she was a woman just doing her job. Now, nearly three years later, the threats continue: “Even after it became clear that Trump was going to win the election a couple of nights ago, I received a lot of messages on Twitter saying things like, we’re going to deport you. I hope you answer for your anti-democratic actions, things like this. So there’s a not insignificant part of the American electorate that believes that I did or had the intention to censor my fellow Americans. And that’s just not true”. Entities like Fox News and congressional Republicans tried to profit off such lies, and “nothing would make them happier than me just kind of retreating into the shadows and I refuse to do that. So that’s why I am undeterred”.
Undeterred – the American Sunlight Project
Despite the constant harassment, Jankowicz decided to establish the American Sunlight Project (ASP), as “a response to the fact that disinformation researchers and folks standing up for the truth in the United States and beyond have been ruthlessly attacked, investigated, and folks have attempted to silence us over the past two and a half years”. Jankowicz has been cyber stalked and deals with online abuse regularly. She was named in frivolous civil suits and had to pay lawyers a lot of money to get dismissed. Jankowicz “decided to sue Fox News myself for defamation because of the role that they played, the outsized role that they played in bringing these lies to millions of people”. In the end, she realized she was not alone: “this wasn’t just happening to me. Maybe I got kind of the worst of it, but there were many other disinformation researchers who were being investigated. I got investigated by a congressional committee. I had to go and sit for a deposition with [Republican congressman] Jim Jordan for five hours. Other people were getting the same thing. Public universities were dealing with document requests. And the result was that a lot of organizations and institutions were retreating from this work or doing it in a much quieter way, which, you know, when you’re trying to combat lies is not particularly helpful”. Jankowicz doesn’t blame other actors for retreating from the area but nonetheless decided “to draw a line in the sand”.
Thus the birth of the bipartisan ASP dedicated to “increasing the cost of lies that we see”. The ASP is not a fact-checking organization. It researches “deceptive information practices, how narratives get seeded and spread and morph, going from message boards to fringe media to mainstream media to the mouths of congressmen to being made into fundraising campaigns for those policies” (the so-called ‘information laundry cycle’, see part 2). The ASP aims to do education work with the public through media engagements as well as information literacy training. Engagement with Congress is also on the agenda. With both parties. Ultimately Jankowicz sees the ASP as “an attempt to provide political cover for organizations that are doing highly technical, very important work in the public interest. We can kind of be that mouthpiece”.
Summary of part 1 (prepared by Microsoft Copilot, checked by Andreas Önnerfors)
Nina Jankowicz, a global disinformation expert, shares her experiences and insights in an interview with Kaia Nisser and Andreas Önnerfors from Fojo Media Institute, Sweden. The discussion covers her career, the challenges she has faced, and her ongoing efforts to combat disinformation.
Key Points
Career Background:
Jankowicz started as a Russia specialist, focusing on disinformation during the 2014 Ukraine war.
Her work in Kyiv during 2016-2017 highlighted the impact of social media on disinformation, especially after Trump's election.
She led the Disinformation Governance Board (DGB) at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in 2022, which was heavily politicized and disbanded before it started.
Challenges and Attacks:
Jankowicz faced significant personal attacks and threats, particularly from the American right, due to her role in combating disinformation.
She was harassed and received threats during her pregnancy, with misinformation about her work spreading widely.
American Sunlight Project (ASP):
In response to these challenges, Jankowicz founded the ASP to continue the fight against disinformation.
ASP focuses on researching deceptive information practices, educating the public, and engaging with Congress.
The project aims to provide political cover for organizations working on disinformation and increase the cost of spreading lies.
Insights on Disinformation:
Disinformation is a global issue with significant implications for national security and public health.
Jankowicz emphasizes the need for a community-based approach to address disinformation, involving face-to-face discussions and proactive communication.
Future Outlook:
The conversation highlights the importance of transparency and proactive measures in combating disinformation.
Jankowicz remains undeterred despite the challenges, continuing her efforts to promote trustworthy information and counter falsehoods.
Conclusion
The interview with Nina Jankowicz provides a comprehensive look at the complexities of disinformation and the ongoing efforts to combat it. Her experiences underscore the importance of resilience and community engagement in addressing this critical issue.
