There are a number of parallels between DEI and the disinformation industry. Both employ a class of professional activists whose livelihood depends on the pretense of an emergency—racism and transphobia in the case of DEI, fake news in the case of disinformation. 🧵
Both thus have a vested interest in defining the emergency as broadly as possible—and in broadening the definition any time the crisis seems in danger of abating. As a result, “disinformation” has almost as many referents as “racism.”
Finally, DEI and disinformation both aim to regulate “harmful” speech. For DEI, those harms are emotional (insensitive speech “harms” the listener); for disinformation, they are civic (false speech harms democracy). But both believe that speech can—and often does—harm.
To me, these parallels suggest an elective affinity between DEI and disinformation bureaucracies. An institution set up to combat “disinformation” can easily be repurposed to combat “hate speech,” and vice versa.
So if you’re worried about the woke capture of institutions, you should be ESPECIALLY worried about Biden’s Ministry of Tr—I mean, “Disinformation Governance Board.” Its animating premises make it extra susceptible to the kind of progressive mission creep we’ve seen elsewhere.
This is important to appreciate, because the disinformation experts—unlike the DEI consultants—present themselves as centrists. And some of them genuinely are.
But that facade of moderation makes the disinformation industry all the more vulnerable to progressive capture.
But that facade of moderation makes the disinformation industry all the more vulnerable to progressive capture.
If you’re worried about the woke takeover of the New York Times, the National Poetry Foundation, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, you should be TERRIFIED of the woke takeover of the national security state. Biden’s disinformation board makes that more likely.
Yes, this too: both industries are plainly the product of elite overproduction. You can tell because the elites in both are so intellectually mediocre.
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