Brian Hardtke's thesis
Bad Idea Poorly Executed: A Case Study of the Disinformation Governance Board
– Executive Summary –
The Department of Homeland Security’s Disinformation Governance Board (DGB) was a short-lived yet highly controversial initiative that illustrates a fundamental paradox: government-led counter-disinformation efforts can weaken the very democratic institutions they aim to protect. This thesis challenges the prevailing narrative that the DGB’s collapse was merely the result of poor execution. Instead, it argues the root causes of the board’s failure were more fundamental, calling into question whether similar efforts could be successful in the future, even with a better-executed public relations strategy.
This thesis identifies multiple factors that contributed to the DGB’s failure. First, the inherent difficulty of defining and countering “disinformation” in a fragmented political and media environment made the board’s mission highly contentious. Without a generally accepted definition, the board’s work was perceived as subjective, raising fears of partisanship and state censorship. Second, the DGB’s perceived attempt to regulate public discourse triggered a broader discursive power struggle over who gets to shape social reality, increasing pre-existing political divisions. This dynamic intensified a democratic “death spiral,” in which declining institutional trust drives further polarization and legitimacy crises. Additionally, the securitization of disinformation—treating it as a dangerous threat to the homeland—heightened public anxiety, counterproductively increasing the public’s susceptibility to manipulation. The rapid politicization of the board ultimately made it untenable, demonstrating the challenges inherent in government-led counter-disinformation work.
The thesis argues that forceful government interventions to counter disinformation can be self-defeating. Instead, it advocates for strategic restraint, a framework that prioritizes de-escalating the perceived threat of disinformation to improve public resilience and democratic stability. Drawing from cognitive science and behavioral research, the study emphasizes that empowering the public through curiosity-driven media literacy, emotional regulation training, and other decentralized strategies is more effective than government-led efforts to contest certain narratives.
Ultimately, this thesis calls for a paradigm shift in counter-disinformation policy. Rather than adopting a crisis management approach that amplifies public anxiety, policymakers should de-escalate the disinformation crisis narrative and shift from a fear-inducing crisis model to a resilience-focused framework. Given the politicization of terms like “misinformation,” “disinformation,” and “malinformation,” government should retire these labels and focus on providing timely, accurate, and non-partisan information to enhance its credibility and effectiveness.
