American author and counter-disinformation expert Nina Jankowicz calls the situation in the US “extremely concerning” as she prepares to share her insights at the World Expression Forum (WEXFO) in Lillehammer in June.
Nina Jankowicz is the co-founder and CEO of The American Sunlight Project, which aims to “increase the cost of lies that undermine democracy,” ensuring citizens have access to trustworthy sources to inform their daily choices. She is a recognized expert on disinformation and democratization, one of TIME magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in AI, and the author of two books: How to Lose the Information War (2020) and How to Be A Woman Online (2022). In June, she will be one of the keynote speakers at WEXFO 2025.
“In an age where the term ‘free speech’ is being weaponized by the very people who claim to be defending it, I’m honored to be speaking at the World Expression Forum and sharing my insights from a decade of fighting disinformation. Truth tellers in the U.S. and in democracies around the world are under attack, and I can’t think of a better place to discuss this untold story than Lillehammer.”
From 2017-2022, Jankowicz held fellowships at the Wilson Center, leading research on the effects of disinformation on women and freedom of expression globally. She advised the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry on strategic communications under a Fulbright-Clinton Public Policy Fellowship in 2016-17. Early in her career, she managed democracy assistance programs to Russia and Belarus at the National Democratic Institute. Jankowicz has also advised international organizations and tech companies, and testified before the US Congress and the UK, Canadian, and European Parliaments.
Growing threat of disinformation – battle over regulation
You have been working against disinformation for over a decade. How is the development progressing? How significant is the threat from disinformation now compared to ten years ago?
“As our lives have become more intertwined with the internet – think of how many basic things you do with your phone or computer each day – the threat of online disinformation grows. Social media platforms have a monetary incentive to keep us enraged, because the most engaging content online is often the most enraging content. We have politicians who use lies as currency; their lies are buoyed by the online system that prioritizes outrage. And our adversaries are happy to amplify all of the discontent we see online as well.”
“In the past, we used to be focused most on disinformation as a foreign threat, but that was always a misconception; it’s our own societal fissures that make us most vulnerable to these deliberate lies. Those vulnerabilities are exploited by politicians, social media companies, and yes, foreign adversaries, to give us the dangerous cocktail we see today.”
How does disinformation affect democracy, and what examples have you seen of this?
“Without a shared reality, it is very difficult for a populace to come together to decide the future of a country. Take a look at the United States, where over a third of the population still believes the 2020 election was stolen, despite a total lack of evidence for this claim. The effect on democracy can’t be understated; those folks are less likely to trust democratic institutions as they go forward.”
What does future development look like from your perspective?
“I think we’re about to see a battle over regulation of social media platforms. This is a major industry that underlies so much of our lives, and yet it faces no regulation in the United States, where most of the companies are based. Meanwhile, the European Union, the UK, Australia, South Korea, and other countries and jurisdictions are implementing online safety regulation addressing everything from deepfake pornography to disinformation. The Trump Administration – together with the social media companies it has captured – has expressed its displeasure with this. What remains to be seen is whether these other regulators will back down in the face of U.S. pressure. This will set the stage for the ability of the US to regulate more broadly in a post-Trump world.”
“Extremely concerning” situation in the US
In 2022, Jankowicz was appointed to lead the Disinformation Governance Board in the US, an intra-agency best practices and coordination entity at the Department of Homeland Security. However, she resigned the position after a sustained right-wing campaign caused the Biden Administration to abandon the project.
The whole world is watching the US; how do you assess the situation and development there now?
“The situation in the States is extremely concerning. It’s not an overstatement to say that if we saw the same developments in another country – promises of criminal investigations against political enemies, the decimation of the professional civil service, the illegal dissolution of a government department, an oligarch controlling the federal government – we would be alarmed. I am waiting to see if Congress, in particular Congressional Republicans, will respond to this constitutional crisis, as is their remit.”
How has disinformation affected American elections and the political debate in the US?
“As I wrote the day after the election: Disinformation is a complex challenge for the United States, but Trump’s victory cannot be attributed directly to it. Just as Russian disinformation is most successful when it weaponizes pre-existing fissures and grievances to undermine us, it is clear the Trump campaign’s messages, which are responsive to deeply held grievances, appeal to a significant number of Americans, even if untrue. The normalization of pervasive, pernicious, and deliberate lies – and Americans’ indifference to them – got us here.”
“It’s not the lies themselves that got us here, but their normalization. People do not care about how falsehoods are used so long as they are used in a way that will create benefit for them, personally.”
What do you think are the biggest challenges the US faces in combating disinformation?
“There will be no combatting disinformation during the Trump administration – only embracing it. In fact, President Trump signed a day one executive order instructing his Department of Justice to investigate those who research disinformation as ‘censorship’ in America – a directive based on a lie told for political purposes. Let’s be clear: responding to disinformation is not ‘censorship’– it’s a vital safeguard against those who lie to erode our democracy and undermine trust in our institutions.”
“What Trump’s Executive Order on ‘Ending Federal Censorship’ really does is chill critical speech about bad actors who use disinformation as a tool to destabilize our country and profit from lies. Disinformation is not a partisan issue; it’s a democracy issue. America’s adversaries benefit when our country is internally divided and politically polarized. That White House policy has canonized lies and conspiracy theories about those responding to disinformation further emboldens both foreign actors and disinformation profiteers who continue to pollute our information environment with falsehoods designed to enrage Americans and pit us against one another. Never one to break character, President Trump seeks vengeance for a slight that never happened.”
Deliberate information consumption and investment in literacy
What can individuals and communities across the world do to protect themselves against disinformation?
“Try to be very deliberate in your information consumption. So much of what we consume online these days we do passively. Track your information consumption for a day – is it what you thought it was? How much are you seeking out versus how much is being fed to you? Note that when you’re feeling emotional, you might be being manipulated. Stop and take note – and try to do some basic fact checking before sharing.”
How can the need to combat disinformation be balanced with maintaining freedom of speech?
“I’m a big believer in information literacy programs; our allies in places like Ukraine have invested heavily in them and they have paid off in dividends to help citizens navigate today’s crowded information environment. This has nothing to do with removing content, but rather equipping people to make choices based in truth. We’ve also seen indications that social media companies’ efforts to label online content or introduce friction – such as a popup that says, “are you sure you want to share this post without reading the article it links to” – reduces the spread of disinformation.”
Do you know of any successful strategies that have been used to combat disinformation?
“Aside from the above, prebunking is a tool that suggests if we are tracking a false narrative, telling people about it ahead of time so they can recognize it as false when they see it helps people resist disinformation.”
How can we improve media literacy among the population to make them more resistant to disinformation?
“I believe these are programs the government should invest in, but in the absence of government, local civil society groups and journalists can play a bit role. This means a completely apolitical approach – not labeling sources as good or bad, trustworthy or not, but again, giving individuals the tools they need to navigate this complex information environment: educating them about algorithmic amplification and biases and the key factors that underlay all disinformation campaigns, domestic or foreign, political or economic driven.”
At WEXFO, Nina Jankowicz will deliver a keynote speech on The Trump Era and participate in a panel on the position of traditional media following last year’s elections. The conference takes place at Scandic Lillehammer Hotel on June 2-3.
Photo: The Wilson Center
