I testified last week in a House Committee on Homeland Security hearing on disinformation and the government’s role in countering it. Unfortunately, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., used the occasion as an opportunity to share some false information of her own.
The hearing, titled “Censorship Laundering: How the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Enables the Silencing of Dissent,” was hosted by the Subcommittee on Oversight, Investigations and Accountability. I was there to testify about the work my research lab does to prevent people from being persuaded by disinformation and harmful online content.
We’re facing a national crisis rooted in the rampant circulation of propaganda, dis- mis- and malinformation, and other harmful online content.
Greene’s appointment to the House Committee on Homeland Security earlier this year was controversial. As Daniel Strauss of The New Republic wrote in an article earlier this year about the potential damage she could do, “If there’s any topic that Greene has used to peddle misinformation and foster fear, it’s national security.” As a member of the committee, she now has access to classified and sensitive information about national security and terrorist threats, and regularly participates in hearings like the one I testified at in order to be informed and ask expert witnesses questions, under the committee’s objective of enhancing U.S. security.
In an exchange with me, Greene asked if I considered Trump supporters extremists. I told her that my lab focuses on “violent extremism — not about what people believe, but to the extent that they are moving toward violence.” She pushed back, saying: “Trump supporters, specifically,” to which I replied, “If they’re calling for violence, it doesn’t matter to me who they support.”
And Greene said, in words that were livestreamed to the nation: “I haven’t seen any.”
There are two ways to interpret her words. Either she meant she hasn’t seen any…
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