Agency overview | |
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Formed | 2022 |
Jurisdiction | Government of the United States |
The White House Task Force to Address Online Harassment and Abuse is a United States task force whose stated function is to address and prevent online harassment and abuse. [1] [2] [3] It will particularly focus on online harassment and abuse against LGBT people and women, who are disproportionately affected. [2] [3] The task force was launched on June 16, 2022 in an announcement made by Vice President Kamala Harris. [1] [2] [3]
Conservatives and libertarians have criticized the task force, including former New York congresswoman Nan Hayworth, Media Research Center founder and CEO Brent Bozell, Conservative commentator Matt Whitlock, and the libertarian organization Young Americans for Liberty. Some of them have accused the task force of being similar to the recently paused Disinformation Governance Board (DGB). Conservatives have also accused the task force of being designed to censor conservative speech. [1] [4]
Laurence Allen Elder is an American conservative political commentator and talk radio host. He hosts The Larry Elder Show, based in California. The show began as a local program on Los Angeles radio station KABC in 1993 and ran until 2008, followed by a second run on KABC from 2010 to 2014. The show is nationally syndicated, first through ABC Radio Networks from 2002 to 2007 and then Salem Media Group from 2015 to 2022. He maintains ties to The Epoch Times, a far-right newspaper published by the Falun Gong movement.
James Daniel Jordan is an American politician currently serving in his ninth term in the U.S. House of Representatives as the representative for Ohio's 4th congressional district since 2007. He is a member of the Republican Party.
Kamala Devi Harris is an American politician and attorney who has been the 49th and current vice president of the United States since 2021, serving with President Joe Biden. She is the first female, African American, and Asian American vice president, making her the highest-ranking female official in U.S. history. Harris is the Democratic Party's nominee for president in the 2024 election. She served in the United States Senate from 2017 to 2021 as the junior senator for California, and earlier as the attorney general of California.
Damian Noel Thomas Collins is a British Conservative Party politician who formerly served as a junior Minister for Tech and the Digital Economy in the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport between July and October 2022. He served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Folkestone and Hythe from 2010 to 2024.
State-sponsored Internet propaganda is Internet manipulation and propaganda that is sponsored by a state. States have used the Internet, particularly social media to influence elections, sow distrust in institutions, spread rumors, spread disinformation, typically using bots to create and spread contact. Propaganda is used internally to control populations, and externally to influence other societies.
Gamergate or GamerGate (GG) was a loosely organized misogynistic online harassment campaign and a right-wing backlash against feminism, diversity, and progressivism in video game culture. It was conducted using the hashtag "#Gamergate" primarily in 2014 and 2015. Gamergate targeted women in the video game industry, most notably feminist media critic Anita Sarkeesian and video game developers Zoë Quinn and Brianna Wu.
Danielle Keats Citron is a Jefferson Scholars Foundation Schenck Distinguished Professor in Law at the University of Virginia School of Law, where she teaches information privacy, free expression, and civil rights law. Citron is the author of "The Fight for Privacy: Protecting Dignity, Identity, and Love in the Digital Age" and "Hate Crimes in Cyberspace" (2014). She also serves as the Vice President of the Cyber Civil Rights Initiative, an organization which provides assistance and legislative support to victims of online abuse. Prior to joining UVA Law, Citron was an Austin B. Fletcher Distinguished Professor of Law at Boston University Law School, and was also the Morton & Sophia Macht Professor of Law at the University of Maryland School of Law.
#MeToo is a social movement and awareness campaign against sexual abuse, sexual harassment and rape culture, in which people publicize their experiences of sexual abuse or sexual harassment. The phrase "Me Too" was initially used in this context on social media in 2006, on Myspace, by sexual assault survivor and activist Tarana Burke. The hashtag #MeToo was used starting in 2017 as a way to draw attention to the magnitude of the problem. "Me Too" is meant to empower those who have been sexually assaulted through empathy, solidarity and strength in numbers, by visibly demonstrating how many have experienced sexual assault and harassment, especially in the workplace.
Yair Rosenberg is an American journalist and a staff writer at The Atlantic, where he covers politics, culture, and religion, and writes the Deep Shtetl newsletter. Formerly a senior writer at Tablet magazine, he is a regular speaker and commentator on antisemitism in the modern era and on strategies to combat abuse on online platforms.
Denver Lee Riggleman III is an American businessman and former politician from Virginia who served one term as the United States representative for Virginia's 5th congressional district. A former Air Force officer and National Security Agency contractor, Riggleman opened a craft distillery in Virginia in 2014. As a Republican, he ran for his party's nomination in the 2017 gubernatorial election, but withdrew from the race. Riggleman was elected to the United States House of Representatives in 2018. Riggleman was defeated in his bid for reelection in 2020, losing to Republican primary challenger Bob Good in a drive-through party convention. Riggleman co-authored a book with Hunter Walker titled The Breach, which was published in October 2022. The book detailed his work on the United States House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack.
The 2024 United States presidential election will be the 60th quadrennial presidential election, set to be held on Tuesday, November 5, 2024. Voters in each state and the District of Columbia will choose electors to the Electoral College, who will then elect a president and vice president for a term of four years.
Social media was used extensively in the 2020 United States presidential election. Both incumbent president Donald Trump and Democratic Party nominee Joe Biden's campaigns employed digital-first advertising strategies, prioritizing digital advertising over print advertising in the wake of the pandemic. Trump had previously utilized his Twitter account to reach his voters and make announcements, both during and after the 2016 election. The Democratic Party nominee Joe Biden also made use of social media networks to express his views and opinions on important events such as the Trump administration's response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the protests following the murder of George Floyd, and the controversial appointment of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court.
The political positions of Kamala Harris are reflected by her United States Senate voting record, public speeches, and interviews. Harris served as the junior senator from California from 2017 to 2021. On August 11, 2020, presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden selected her as his running mate in the 2020 United States presidential election, running against incumbent U.S. President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence. With Biden's victory, Harris became vice president. She announced her candidacy in the 2024 United States presidential election after Biden chose not to run for reelection on July 21, 2024.
#KHive is the hashtag used by an informal online community supporting Kamala Harris, the 49th vice president of the United States and 2024 Democratic presidential nominee. The hashtag is also a term that is always pronounced and occasionally transcribed as K-Hive, and refers to the wider online community that is not formally affiliated with her campaign or office. The community formed prior to and during her 2020 presidential campaign as an effort to defend Harris from perceived misinformation and attacks perceived as racist and sexist. The movement has been cited as an example of social media fandom or stan culture.
A presidential task force or White House task force is a board of advisors appointed by the president of the United States whose main purpose is to enact policies in relation to responding to either national emergencies, crises, or general policy initiatives. Presidential task force members are part of the Executive Office of the President of the United States who don't require United States Senate confirmation and can be dismissed at the discretion of the president. This is granted by the Constitution of the United States under Article Two, Section Two, Clause One, stating, "require the Opinion, in writing, of the principal Officer in each of the executive Departments, upon any Subject relating to the Duties of their respective Offices."
The 2024 United States presidential election in Texas is scheduled to take place on Tuesday, November 5, 2024, as part of the 2024 United States elections in which all 50 states plus the District of Columbia will participate. Texas voters will choose electors to represent them in the Electoral College via a popular vote. The state of Texas has 40 electoral votes in the Electoral College, following reapportionment due to the 2020 United States census in which the state gained two seats.
The 2022 State of the Union Address was given by the 46th president of the United States, Joe Biden, on March 1, 2022, at 9:00 p.m. EST, in the chamber of the United States House of Representatives to the 117th United States Congress. It was Biden's first State of the Union Address and his second speech to a joint session of the United States Congress. Presiding over this joint session was the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, accompanied by Kamala Harris, the vice president, in her capacity as the president of the Senate.
Libs of TikTok is a handle for various far-right and anti-LGBT social-media accounts operated by Chaya Raichik, a former real estate agent. Raichik uses the accounts to repost content created by left-wing and LGBT people on TikTok, and on other social-media platforms, often with hostile, mocking, or derogatory commentary. The accounts promote hate speech and transphobia, and spread false claims, especially relating to medical care of transgender children. The Twitter account, also known by the handle @LibsofTikTok, has nearly 3 million followers as of February 2024 and has become influential among American conservatives and the political right. Libs of TikTok's social-media accounts have received several temporary suspensions and a permanent suspension from TikTok.
The Disinformation Governance Board (DGB) was an advisory board of the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS), announced on April 27, 2022. The board's stated function was to protect national security by disseminating guidance to DHS agencies on combating misinformation, malinformation, and disinformation that threatens the security of the homeland. Specific problem areas mentioned by the DHS included false information propagated by human smugglers encouraging migrants to surge to the Mexico–United States border, as well as Russian-state disinformation on election interference and the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Nina Jankowicz is an American researcher and writer. She is the author of How to Lose the Information War (2020), on Russian use of disinformation as geopolitical strategy, and How to Be a Woman Online (2022), a handbook for fighting against online harassment of women. She briefly served as executive director of the newly created United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS)'s Disinformation Governance Board, resigning from the position amid the dissolution of the board by DHS in May 2022.