The Ministry of Disinformation

“We could have done a better job." [View in browser]( [Bloomberg]( Hey, it’s Margi in San Francisco. A U.S. plan to combat disinformation landed with a bit of a thud. But first... Today’s must-reads: - Elon Musk said he would reverse the [permanent Twitter ban]( on Donald Trump if the deal closes -  Peloton [plunged to record lows]( as hopes for a comeback dim -  FIFA, the popular video game franchise, [will be renamed]( Not quite Orwellian It took mere minutes for a new White House plan to track disinformation to itself become the subject of misinformation, with social media users seizing on the idea to compare members of the Biden administration to storybook villains. The Department of Homeland Security’s “Disinformation Governance Board,” the existence of which [Politico first reported]( on April 27, is part of a government effort to refute fabricated narratives about election security and internet conspiracies, according to DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. For a nation scarred by QAnon, false claims about electoral fraud and lingering mistrust in coronavirus vaccines, a government outfit focused on stopping fake news and foreign conspiracies might have seemed like a logical step. So far, it’s turned out to be an own-goal. As word of the DGB’s existence went viral, verified Twitter personalities drew comparisons to the Ministry of Truth, the fictional propaganda agency popularized in the George Orwell novel “1984." Others, perhaps misunderstanding the reference, joked that it sounded like something out of the Harry Potter series. Social media users from the right and left largely mocked the government effort, united behind the question of who, exactly, told DHS it could decide what counts as the truth.  One academic suggested that the botched delivery played straight into the hands of those who claim the quest to rid the country of disinformation is a crusade against free speech. Another put it more bluntly: “a s--- storm.” The mob needed a target, and found one in Nina Jancowicz, the head of the new department. Jancowicz has been the subject of frequent coverage from Fox News, the New York Post and right-leaning outlets seeking to discredit the DHS plan. Jancowicz’s impressive resume, including a stint advising Ukraine’s foreign ministry, wasn’t enough to deter critics who accused her of left-wing bias and peddling her own brand of disinformation. The smoking gun: a tweet that appeared to suggest she believed a New York Post story about Hunter Biden was the work of Russian disinformation (Jancowicz says the tweet was taken out of context). Internet trolls seized on a video of Jancowicz singing about “information laundering” to the tune of the Mary Poppins’ classic, “Supercalifragilistic Expialidocious.” Critics included sitting U.S. senators and representatives. But the government’s actual plans are far removed from the plot of “1984,” said Joan Donovan, research director of the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard University.  “The board does not seem to be charged with any domestic assessments, and therefore the claim that it is a Ministry Of Truth seems to be overblown,” she said.  Indeed, DHS seemingly needs all the help it can get to better understand foreign influence campaigns and irregular patterns particularly ahead of the midterm elections. The word disinformation is now so loaded that fact-checking itself has become polarizing to the point of toxicity. When mentioning disinformation to potential sources, they often ask me to define the term, followed by the dig: “Is it just what you don’t believe in?” That’s the kind of question that DHS Secretary Mayorkas will be getting more often now, too. After the introduction of the DGB created more questions than answers, Mayorkas made a series of media appearances to clarify the organization’s mission. As he told NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday, “We could have done a better job of communicating what it is and what it isn’t.” —[Margi Murphy](mailto:mmurphy500@bloomberg.net) The big story Apple’s iPod, a groundbreaking device that upended the music and electronics industries more than two decades ago, [is no more](. The company said Tuesday it would discontinue the iPod Touch, the final remnant of a product line that [debuted]( in October 2001. What else you need to know The National Security Agency is probing the use of [Russian-made cybersecurity]( software among U.S. businesses. Spain replaced the head of its intelligence agency in a bid to calm a furor [sparked by the discovery]( that Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s phone was hacked with spyware. Facebook attacked Germany’s competition watchdog, saying regulators [conflated data protection]( and antitrust law to target the company’s business model. Intel rolled out new processors [designed for data centers](. Follow Us More from Bloomberg Dig gadgets or video games? [Sign up for Power On]( to get Apple scoops, consumer tech news and more in your inbox on Sundays. [Sign up for Game On]( to go deep inside the video game business, delivered on Fridays. Why not try both? Like getting this newsletter? [Subscribe to Bloomberg.com]( for unlimited access to trusted, data-driven journalism and subscriber-only insights.​​​​​​​ You received this message because you are subscribed to Bloomberg's Fully Charged newsletter. If a friend forwarded you this message, [sign up here]( to get it in your inbox. 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