Former Homeland Security Official Falsely Asserts Harmful Disinformation is the “Norm” in Media Landscape
“We know that in today’s threat environment, disinformation is unfortunately becoming the norm rather than the exception when it comes to election security,” argues Sam Vinograd, a former Department of Homeland Security (DHS) official. “Social media companies should be thinking about what kinds of election disinformation violate their terms of service,” which generally pose “an unprecedented level of physical threats.”
However, little evidence suggests that disinformation is the new “norm” in the media landscape, regardless of suspected foreign interference, technological advancement, or the popularity of social media. In fact, the Department of Defense has experimented with misinformation detection since 2002, specifically funding research to identify “false or misleading statements in textual documents” in their Misinformation Detection (MInDet) program. This includes a 2016 effort to address disinformation propagation catalyzed by the ubiquity of “consumer imaging technology,” which includes digital cameras and mobile phones, as these technologies allow “even relatively unskilled users to manipulate and distort the message of [] visual media.” And even if disinformation currently posed an unprecedented threat, when the Supreme Court had the opportunity to deliberate on the relationship between violent video games and real-world violence, the Court ultimately struck down a California law restricting such content after there was a lack of empirical evidence to sustain “that exposure to violent video games caused minors to act aggressively.”
While disinformation has existed in numerous forms throughout history, it is difficult to quantifiably compare the past and present media landscape. Ultimately, the DHS has done more to spread disinformation than mitigate it, such as censoring the Hunter-Biden laptop story.
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