Garza: Latinos Will Not Be Silenced By the DGB

Daniel Garza, Director of the LIBRE Initiative, has a message for the masterminds behind the “paused” Disinformation Governance Board (DGB) and their lackeys at the Spanish-speaking media: don´t tell Latinos to shut up because they won´t.

An opinion piece byIn the SourceApril 31^StGarza discusses the topic of disinformation, and how it affects Hispanics. This group is often a result of fleeing oppressive regimes that were known to micromanage, punish and surveil citizens who speak out freely.

“On April 27, the Department of Homeland Security announced the creation of its new Disinformation Governance Board. The board was suspended on May 18th, just a few months later. The board may not have had a long shelf life, but the threat it represented — the suppression of speech — requires near-eternal vigilance,” Garza explained in his opening paragraph.

Und sie You are required to be vigilant, especially since one of the Biden administration´s pretexts for creating the 2022 version of the Ministry of Truth, is “to counter misinformation in Hispanic communities especially.” This was amplified in a Telemundo report where the anchor described the DGB as “A disinformation board to combat human traffickers and coyotes”, but made no mention of the controversy surrounding the Director of the DGB.   

Say what they may, as Garza explains, no one in 21st-century America knows more than the Hispanic community about “government agencies surveilling, micromanaging and even punishing citizens’ free speech”. “They know — firsthand — that corrupt regimes across Central and South America have long used “misinformation” as a pretext for naked, Orwellian oppression,” he wrote.

Here are a few takeaways from Galarza´s opinion piece regarding disinformation boards currently active in the Americas:

1. Cuba:  The Institute of Information and Social Communication, whose purpose is to prosecute online support for protests against the communist regime. Last summer the censors arrested more than 1,000 Cubans — hundreds of whom are still detained — and committed at least 130 documented violations of due process after the unprecedented public protests in Havana. What were their crimes? “Spreading fake news,” and “promoting social indiscipline”.
2. Venezuela: President Nicolas Maduro’s government blocks apps, punishes criticism and floods platforms with lies to confuse the public.
3. Nicaragua: President Daniel Ortega just shut down 25 nonprofit organizations critical of his oppressive regime, harkening back to the nation’s sad Cold War history of totalitarian censorship.
4. Mexico: New social media rules are being enacted by Mexican lawmakers

“Contrary to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas’ implication that Hispanics need special protection from misinformation, it’s worth remembering that new Americans are discerning enough to navigate the impenetrable slog of our dysfunctional immigration system”, writes Galarza.

And, like he discusses, “while freedom is messy, and bad ideas and false rumors online can have real world effects, censorship is worse, as anyone who has ever lived under it can tell you. In the real world, the only solution to bad speech is more speech — not less. Even if the administration’s Disinformation Governance Board has the best of intentions, “we the people” would do well to exercise our First Amendment rights by telling the administration: thanks, but no thanks.”

These include the many millions of Latinos now calling the United States home. What is their message to the DGB, Latino media and Latinos? “Gracias pero no gracias”.

To read Daniel Garza´s complete opinion piece, please follow this Follow this link.