Member-only story
“Disinformation Governance Board” or “Ministry of Truth”?
Republicans are calling a new DHS initiative to combat disinformation something straight out of 1984. Is it?
In September 2021, the Texas border town of Del Rio became the site of an unexpected gathering: fourteen thousand would-be migrants to the U.S., corralled into a makeshift encampment underneath the International Bridge. The migrants had come from Haiti through Mexico to Ciudad Acuna, the Mexican city across the Rio Grande from Del Rio, largely because of social-media messages on apps like WhatsApp that had mistakenly or falsely told them they would be able to get into the U.S. easily, and that Del Rio was the place to do it.
Many of those messages had been sent by family members who were mistaken about the immigration rules. Some were put on Facebook or other social-media sites by people posting carelessly. And some were the product of deliberate deception, posted by human traffickers looking to drum up business. In other words, thousands of Haitians found themselves in the middle of nowhere with only a slim chance of making it across the border and being allowed to stay, and in the process created a major problem for US Customs and Border Protection, in large part because of social media mis- and disinformation.
