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Nina Jankowicz

@ninajankowicz.com
62K followers 851 following 2K posts

🙅🏻‍♀️ Author (2 books & The Wayfinder newsletter), disinformation expert, advocate for targets of online abuse. ☀️ CEO, @americansunlight.org 😆 Tucker Carlson once called me a “highly self confident young woman” and meant it as an insult

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Nina Jankowicz @ninajankowicz.com · 27/09/2026
So many good soup recipes here! Sharing my mom’s pasta fagioli recipe because several folks asked. It’s nothing fancy (and probably not very authentic, we’re polish!) but it’s a weeknight staple for us in fall and winter
Pasta fagioli 

Dice 2 onions
Sautee with a drizzle of olive oil and a clove or two of garlic till browned
Add a can of crushed tomatoes and enough water to fill your pot 2-3 inches from the top 
Add 3 beef bouillon cubes, 1 tsp sugar, S&P to taste. Can also add some Italian seasoning if desired. 
Bring to a boil, add 2 C ditalini, cook till al dente 
Add 1 can drained cannellini beans, warm through 
Serve with Parmesan or Pecorino and enjoy 🥰
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Nina Jankowicz @ninajankowicz.com · 17/09/2026
🎶 just another day on the internet when you’ve been made into a supervillain based on lies 🎶 (PS: I am not Jewish. I am not religious at all, actually, but how absurd to need to clarify…)
Sent via form submission from Nina Jankowicz
Name: Yid Yid
Email: yidyid@gmail.com
I'm getting in touch about...: Other
Message: You should unironically kill yourself. 
Manage Submissions
Does this submission look like spam? Report it
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Nina Jankowicz @ninajankowicz.com · 30/08/2026
Normal people on a gorgeous late summer Saturday morning: ☀️ 🌼 😎 Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy Sarah Rogers: oh, I know, I’ll remind everyone of the gigantic public failure that led to calls for my resignation!!
Sarah Roger’s quote tweets her earlier nothingburger, writing “I don't personally go around accusing other women of having "manly chins," but it is farcical to see this treated as "disinformation" which the government should have any role whatsoever in suppressing.”
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Nina Jankowicz @ninajankowicz.com · 21/08/2026
Me and my giant manly chin are having a nice Friday night on vacation with my family but the Under Secretary of State is tweeting about me cause she has a very fulfilling night
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Nina Jankowicz @ninajankowicz.com · 17/08/2026
Extremely fucked up comments from people who clearly believe this is real (Sorry, I am not adding alt text to these, reading them is enough for one day)
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Nina Jankowicz @ninajankowicz.com · 17/08/2026
Don't know what to say except (1) I am obviously alive, hi (2) I was never arrested (3) This is what passes for "parody" and "humor" on the right. This story has almost 20k views. This site has raised almost $419k on GiveSendGo.
Screenshot of article: Deep Stater Dies at GITMO

By Michael Baxter - August 16, 2026
19066 views 159 comments

Picture of Nina Jankowicz

A Deep Stater who had been held in pretrial confinement at GITMO for over a year died from pnumonia complicatoins at Naval Hospital Guantanamo Bay on August 7, Real Raw News has learned.

As reported in August 2025, White Hats nabbed lunatic leftist Nina Jankowicz, former administrator of disgraced pResident Biden’s ephemeral Disinformation Governance Board, outside a posh D.C. bar. Soon after, she was arraigned on charges of abetting the enemy, seditious conspiracy, and treason and sent to Camp Delta pending a military tribunal.
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Nina Jankowicz @ninajankowicz.com · 11/08/2026
Pupdate. She’s a *very* good and smart girl—5 months old tomorrow! 🐾💜
A black lab mix with a white star on her chest sits in front of a garden with coneflowers  and agastache in it. She looks off the the right of the frame. A black lab mix with a white star on her chest sits in front of a garden with coneflowers  and agastache in it. She looks at the camera.
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Nina Jankowicz @ninajankowicz.com · 07/08/2026
Mike Benz was paid over HALF A MILLION DOLLARS from a SINGLE ORGANIZATION in a SINGLE YEAR to spread lies that there's a massive conspiracy to censor conservatives online www.technologyreview.com/2026/08/07/1...
At the same time, IAF indirectly supported FFO and Benz personally, donating millions of dollars to conservative organizations that acted as the biggest financial sponsors of his work. In 2023 and 2024, the only years that he appears directly in any nonprofits’ financial documents, Benz was paid $530,000 from one organization alone.
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Nina Jankowicz @ninajankowicz.com · 05/08/2026
They're so creative!
Form submission from my website that says "Fuck you disinformation cunt"
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Nina Jankowicz @ninajankowicz.com · 03/08/2026
Part-time fellowship opportunity! @americansunlight.org is looking for a Free Expression Fellow to help with our newsletter and to keep TrumpCensorship.org up to date. ☀️ Come work with me, @benmshultz.net, and @kensyring.com! More info below:
The American Sunlight Project works to ensure that citizens have access to trustworthy sources to inform the choices they make in their daily lives. 

We’re seeking a Free Expression Fellow to join our team from August-December, with possible extension pending funding. The Fellow will play a key role in producing our regular newsletter on censorship that helps our readers stay informed on the rapidly evolving US political landscape.
Primary Responsibilities
Weekly Briefing: Compile and write Last Week in Censorship, a clear and engaging newsletter-style roundup of platform policy changes, censorship news, and regulatory developments that erode America’s democracy.
Data collection: In support of our censorship tracker, compile instances from the weekly briefing in a database. 
Ideal Candidate
The ideal candidate will be motivated to document instances of democratic backsliding in the United States and excited to take on a part-time, non-profit commitment in service of that goal. You might be a student, retiree, or someone looking to add some moonlighting for a good cause to your resume. You will also possess:
U.S. Citizenship or legal residency;
Exceptional writing skills, with a strong command of tone, clarity, and synthesis;
Knowledge of U.S. politics and social media; 
Experience in research, journalism, public policy, or a related field is desirable;
Familiarity with tech policy, internet culture, free expression issues, and/or platform governance is a strong plus;
Familiarity with Substack is a plus, but not required.
Details
Estimated commitment: 5-8 hours per week, with possible extension pending funding;
Start date: ASAP through December 2026. Flexible scheduling and fully remote; 
Compensation: $2500 honorarium.
To Apply
Send your CV, a short cover note (just a couple paragraphs explaining your interest), and a writing sample (preferably on a tech or policy topic) to benjamin@americansunlight.org. Please include “Fellow Application” in the subject line.
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Nina Jankowicz @ninajankowicz.com · 31/07/2026
TIL I was nearly “given complete control of the internet” News to me! It’s been 4 yrs since these men started fantasizing about me, and with each passing day the plot gets wilder. They should try their hand at romance novels, though tbh their current jobs (monetized liars) are just as lucrative.
Quote Tweet from Mike cernovich including picture of Nina Jankowicz: “ I am not a Trump worshiper, that would be a dollar tree, and I also have no patience for those wishing Trump had not won. Maybe people were not paying attention? I was. I lived it. This woman was about to be given complete control over the Internet. 
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Nina Jankowicz @ninajankowicz.com · 13/07/2026
I've written a bit about why Trump may be doing this: www.thewayfinder.net/p/why-is-the... Seems like they're moving the timeline up...
Imagine, for a second, it’s October. What might happen if the next DNI declassifies intelligence assessments about an adversary’s attempted incursions into voting systems? Maybe that adversary is China or Iran, Trump’s favorite bogeymen, which his supporters are primed to hate. Even if the declassified documents only describe ongoing, thwarted interference attempts, or assess with low confidence that an incursion is possible or likely, the administration could wave this intel around to inspire distrust in our democratic infrastructure, or more chillingly, attempt to make changes to the electoral process on the basis of what it says are “urgent threats.”
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Nina Jankowicz @ninajankowicz.com · 13/07/2026
When Hany Farid speaks, we listen.
Linkedin Post from Hany Farid, deepfake detection expert: 

"We at GetReal Security are fielding questions about the image of Senator Mitch McConnell released over the weekend. While there is a lot of speculation online that the photo may be fake, we find no evidence that the image is fake or AI generated.

In particular, we analyzed both faces in the image using a customized model that distinguishes real from AI-generated or -manipulated faces, and neither face is flagged as suspicious. In addition, we find no invisible watermark embedded in the image indicating AI generation. The lighting and shading on McConnell’s face and body are physically plausible and consistent. And, we have also verified that the newspaper in McConnell’s hand is consistent with this past Saturday's edition of the Washington Post Sports section. (The released photo is not high resolution and so we aren't able to recover readable text from the newspaper; AI-enhanced versions of the newspaper that are floating around are hallucinating distorted text; distorted text  does not appear in the original photo)."
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Nina Jankowicz @ninajankowicz.com · 10/07/2026
It is July 9, if still you’re shooting fireworks off all you’re doing is scaring innocent puppies before their last potty break of the night 😑
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Nina Jankowicz @ninajankowicz.com · 06/07/2026
Meet Kaylee, who we rescued today 🥰 🐾
black lab-like dog sitting in box with blanket. Dog has a wide snout, brown eyes, and a few white markings on paws and chest, smiling at camera with mouth open.
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Nina Jankowicz @ninajankowicz.com · 04/07/2026
9 years ago, when I was a Fulbright Public Policy Fellow in Kyiv, I had the honor of singing the National Anthem at the US Embassy’s July 4 Celebration. My work to counter disinformation over the past decade-plus has always been motivated by a desire to work toward a more perfect union. 1/2
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Nina Jankowicz @ninajankowicz.com · 21/06/2026
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Nina Jankowicz @ninajankowicz.com · 09/06/2026
Some pics and thoughts from this weekend’s premiere of Jennifer Siebel Newsom’s new film on online misogyny, MISS REPRESENTATION: RISE UP ✨ 💪 missrepresentstionriseup.org
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Nina Jankowicz @ninajankowicz.com · 07/06/2026
I’m proud to share that my story is part of Miss Representation: Rise Up, premiering at the Tribeca Film Festival today, June 7th. This documentary is about the reality and dangers of being a woman online, including the tech systems that look the other way. #MissRepresentation #RiseUp #Tribeca2026
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Nina Jankowicz @ninajankowicz.com · 01/06/2026
Update on hacking of ObamaWhiteHouse IG account from @craigsilverman.bsky.social: hackers gained access by convincing Meta's chatbot they owned the account. (I've deleted my older posts on this to surface reality rather than the possibilities I was discussing)
Over the weekend, hackers used a shockingly easy method to take over high profile Instagram accounts like @ObamaWhiteHouse.

The way in? Convince Meta's AI support chatbot that you own the account. I won't share the the exact method but it's dangerously easy and I've seen multiple videos that demonstrate it in real time. Credible investigators like ZachXBT have also flagged it.

Meta has apparently been helping to recover accounts, but this was a huge flaw that appears to reinforce the risk of letting AI systems perform important tasks without human review. I'm reaching out to the company for comment and will update.
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Nina Jankowicz @ninajankowicz.com · 29/05/2026
What in the Fourth of July fuck is this (Seen at Union Station, DC)
Digital Billboard in union station. An (ai generated?) picture of the American founding fathers is next to white text on red background:

THEY SAY THE MOST IMPORTANT ELEMENT OF A STARTUP IS ITS FOUNDERS.
THERE WOULD BE NO SILICON VALLEY WITHOUT BUNKER HILL. AND THE MEN OF CHARACTER AND COURAGE WHO RISKED EVERYTHING ON THE AMERICAN VENTURE
DELIVERED BY PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP AND SECRETARY SEAN P. DUFFY
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Nina Jankowicz @ninajankowicz.com · 27/05/2026
Can someone please tell me why I’ve received: -two phone calls -a text -two LinkedIn messages -several emails …from three different firms in the past 2.5 hours, all asking me to do a “paid phone consultation” on women and AI because I was “requested by name” What sort of weird scam is this?
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Nina Jankowicz @ninajankowicz.com · 21/05/2026
Is Trump’s $1.8B slush fund as nonpartisan as the administration claims? Probably not. But I intend to find out.
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Nina Jankowicz @ninajankowicz.com · 14/05/2026
Marco Rubio attempts to melt into oval office couch at Feb 2025 WH press conference between Trump and Zelensky
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Nina Jankowicz @ninajankowicz.com · 08/05/2026
About to join @bbcnews to talk Ukraine 🇺🇦 and Putin’s BS Victory Day truce
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Nina Jankowicz @ninajankowicz.com · 08/05/2026
Since March, I’ve been re-watching the incredible TV series THE AMERICANS with @themaydaynetwork.com’s podcast THE ILLEGALS. In episode 7, one character is based on a real-life Polish dissident—something I knew a little bit about 🤓  Check out the full episode here youtu.be/Ltzdzcp9C1U
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Nina Jankowicz @ninajankowicz.com · 07/05/2026
Doing research, looking at State Department FOIA logs, and happened upon dozens and dozens of requests in 2024 for communications between me and the State Department about the arrest of Pavel Durov. I have a vague memory of cranks on X deciding I was responsible, but this is insane. Jesus.
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Nina Jankowicz @ninajankowicz.com · 05/05/2026
Ah yes, let's definitely take advice on which conspiracies are real from the guy who (checks notes) is a self-appointed expert on UFOs despite having no scientific training, and has spent the past 4 yrs claiming evidence of a massive censorship conspiracy, while ignoring all facts to the contrary 🙃
Screenshot of Michael Shellenberg's "PUBLIC" Newsletter, with title "How to Know Which Conspiracies Are Real"
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Nina Jankowicz @ninajankowicz.com · 29/04/2026
the hilarious thing is that she says that in the article 🤣
But it turns out every accusation is an admission. In this case, the Left — Democrats and media alike — accused conservatives of pedaling mis/disinformation online about a variety of topics, including COVID, vaccines, President Biden's cognitive health, and transgender issues, among other things. What they were really doing is hiding their own push for misinformation, and that push it seems has violent, deadly consequences.
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Nina Jankowicz @ninajankowicz.com · 29/04/2026
Guys, it took a few days, but MAGA has finally figured out a way to blame the WHCA violence on me and anyone else who studies disinformation!! Their very circuitous argument: by studying disinformation, we are attempting to conceal *our own* disinfo, which is leading to violence against POTUS 🙃
Screenshot of headline from Amy Curtis article in Town Hall called "The Left's Violence is Rooted in (D)isinformation"

..and no, i don't understand why the D is in parentheses either
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Nina Jankowicz @ninajankowicz.com · 17/04/2026
If you’re up this early tune into @cnbc.com and hear me discuss Iran’s AI-generated propaganda 📺 ☀️
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Nina Jankowicz @ninajankowicz.com · 02/04/2026
Brazil is trouncing the "free speech" warriors trying to meddle in the country's upcoming election—they just banned Trump admin shitplomat Darren Beattie from entering the country—yet Jim Jordan's still trying to make fetch happen and avenge his BFF Elon 😂 1/
New Report Reveals the Extent of the Brazilian Censorship Regime's Threat to American Free Speech
April 1, 2026
Press Release
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, the House Judiciary Committee released an interim staff report titled "The Attack on Free Speech Abroad: The Case of Brazil Part III." The report details new evidence discovered by the Committee proving that Brazil's censorship regime targets speech within the United States and forces American social media companies to decide between complying with its censorship demands or face lawfare and cease operations in the country. In 2024, the Committee issued reports detailing how Brazilian authorities ordered American social media companies X and Rumble to suspend or remove popular accounts and other content that expresses views disfavored by the Brazilian government—including speech by American users.

New nonpublic documents obtained by the Committee show that Brazil's censorship regime, led by Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, regularly targets speech within the United States by:

Issuing global removal orders;
Partnering with censors around the world; and
Removing legal liability protections for social media platforms.
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Nina Jankowicz @ninajankowicz.com · 01/04/2026
Needed my wine for this one 🙃 **If you are offended by a Jersey girl speaking her birthright (F bombs) please scroll on**
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Nina Jankowicz @ninajankowicz.com · 31/03/2026
Glad Congress is catching up 😇 From my 2020 book, HOW TO LOSE THE INFORMATION WAR www.ninajankowicz.com/books
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Nina Jankowicz @ninajankowicz.com · 29/03/2026
It’s been happening for a while but I feel like I get into really tedious arguments and see insane stuff from dudes weekly these days. For example… (name and employer blocked bc this one is not my fight)
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Nina Jankowicz @ninajankowicz.com · 23/03/2026
No, @washingtonpost.com Editorial Board, I remember when conservatives **lied** that the board would be a Ministry of Truth, when its founding documents prove that it was set up to *protect* fundamental rights while responding to disinfo. Glad I cancelled my subscription months ago.
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Nina Jankowicz @ninajankowicz.com · 10/03/2026
It's my birthday! Normally I would ask that you contribute to a charity in my honor but this year the charity is me 🙃 Times are hard for those of us who fight for our shared reality. Here are a bunch of ways that you can support my continued work to preserve it: [a short thread...]
Nina Jankowicz onstage, smiling, with arms outstretched, in a pink blouse and grey jacket. A digitally-added party hat is on her head
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Nina Jankowicz @ninajankowicz.com · 05/03/2026
Today I got mentioned in another Congressional hearing because: -Bill Huizenga thinks he’s clever (no) -Republicans like to lie about Biden era censorship to distract from the real censorship Trump is doing (see TrumpCensorship.com)
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Nina Jankowicz @ninajankowicz.com · 01/03/2026
TFW your predictions from your 2020 book were eerily accurate 😩 www.bloomsbury.com/us/how-to-lo...
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Nina Jankowicz @ninajankowicz.com · 24/02/2026
I continue to live rent free in the right-wing’s heads. (I forgive them, they seem to find it so hard to learn new things. We're now going on four years of their boring obsession with me.)
Robert Shibley tweets: 
I can't quite figure out what's going on with this freedom.gov thing but th elevel of European wailing over it is so extreme that I think I support it. 
I mean, the Guardian is out there unironically quoting Nina Jankowicz.Sean Hannity shares article from "rogue recap" with title "Biden's 'Disinformation' Board Mastermind Lands FISA Court Role." The article has a giant picture of Nina Jankowicz, who is not the subject of the story.
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Nina Jankowicz @ninajankowicz.com · 19/02/2026
If you’re up early join me on CNBC around 545 ET for a convo on AI bot swarms 📺 ☀️
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Nina Jankowicz @ninajankowicz.com · 16/02/2026
I know everyone has a lot bigger problems on their minds, but four years after I took a government job in my area of expertise, I continue to face astronomical legal bills because people lied about me. If you can help at all, I'd appreciate it. Thanks 💙 www.gofundme.com/f/nina-janko...
Friends, 

Safeguarding our shared reality continues to be a bleak financial proposition. While I’m working harder than ever to document this administration’s assault on free expression, it’s not bringing in much income, thanks to the chilling effect Trump 2.0 has had on the institutions that once invested in my field. The relentless enemies of truth, however, are profiting from their lies, and challenges to my family’s privacy and safety persist. 

My stalker continues to make frivolous legal filings; now, he is retaliating against me for obtaining a protective order against him in 2023. This has led to yet another large legal bill, bringing the total of my legal expenses since 2022 above $100,000. I know times are tough right now—believe me, I feel it too. This community is the reason I was able to pay my bills after I was villainized for choosing to serve my country. If you can spare a few dollars to help me pay this latest bill, I would be really grateful. Your support means so much. 

https://www.gofundme.com/f/nina-jankowicz-legal-fund

With sincere thanks, 

Nina
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Nina Jankowicz @ninajankowicz.com · 23/01/2026
Something tells me they won't be issuing a correction or apology for their rampant lies 🙃 If you want to see the highlights from the rest of the hearing check them out here: americansunlight.substack.com/p/calling-bs...
Screenshot of House Foreign Affairs Committee Republicans YouTube video with description:

Nina Jankowicz is crying over the State Department legally revoking visas of FOREIGN students sympathetic to Hamas terrorists.

But as Biden’s disinformation czar, she wanted to censor and suppress AMERICAN citizens from their right to free speech.


(Only 681 views tho ;))In the case of Ms. Ozturk, a Tufts University postdoctoral student, officials wrote that there was no evidence she had “engaged in any antisemitic activity” or made “any public statements indicating support for a terrorist organization or antisemitism generally.” Nevertheless, they recommended that her visa be revoked based on “the totality of the circumstances presented.” A dossier compiled about her centered on an opinion piece she had written in The Tufts Daily, a student newspaper, calling for divestment from Israel.
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Nina Jankowicz @ninajankowicz.com · 23/01/2026
The Trump Administration tried to deport Mahmoud Khalil, Rumeysa Ozturk & other foreign students for their speech. 🎁🔗 www.nytimes.com/2026/01/22/u... I called this out in a hearing before the House Foreign Affairs Committee last April, and the Republicans mocked me for it (see next post)
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Nina Jankowicz @ninajankowicz.com · 21/01/2026
‼️ Today @americansunlight.org launches TrumpCensorship.com, a public dataset visualizing 200+ censorship actions by the Trump Admin against journalists, researchers & citizens since his 2nd term began. From our weekly "Last Week in Censorship" monitoring → one interactive archive you can't ignore.
screen shot of trumpcensorship.com dashboard including timeline, map, and bar charts in red, white, and blue
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Nina Jankowicz @ninajankowicz.com · 17/01/2026
I guess "presidential diplomacy" in the National Securityy Strategy actually means "threatening our centuries-old allies with what amounts to economic sanctions until they give us the land we want" To be clear: this is what Putin would try to do if the Russian economy were worth anything
Realignment Through Peace – Seeking peace deals at the President’s
direction, even in regions and countries peripheral to our immediate core
interests, is an effective way to increase stability, strengthen America’s
global influence, realign countries and regions toward our interests, and
open new markets. The resources required boil down to presidential
diplomacy, which our great nation can embrace only with competent
leadership. The dividends—an end to longstanding conflicts, lives saved,
new friends made—can vastly outweigh the relatively minor costs of time
and attention.
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Nina Jankowicz @ninajankowicz.com · 14/01/2026
Glad @americansunlight.org's research with @indicator.media has been cited in @theguardian.com, along w my comment on the infrastructure of deepfakes. I've included some of the rest of my comment below - "if a man can’t undress me without my consent on the street, he can’t do it online either." 🙅🏻‍♀️
Research from the ISD last summer found dozens of nudification apps and websites, which collectively received nearly 21 million visitors in May 2025. There were 290,000 mentions of these tools on X in June and July last year. Research by the American Sunlight Project in September found that there were thousands of ads for such apps on Meta, despite the platform’s efforts to crack down on them.

“There are hundreds of apps hosted on mainstream app stores like Apple and Google that make this possible,” said Nina Jankowicz, a disinformation expert who co-founded the American Sunlight Project. “Much of the infrastructure of deepfake sexual abuse is supported by companies that we all use on a daily basis.”This is everyday, run of the mill misogyny, powered by technology created for and by men. To that end, yes, images like this have always existed on the internet; now they’re just more realistic and terrifyingly simple to come by. Add the anonymity of the internet into the mix and you reanimate the behaviors decades of women’s rights campaigning have rightfully outlawed “in real life.” On the internet, we’re told by Elon Musk that it’s just “speech.” Well, the internet is real life, and if a man can’t undress me without my consent on the street, he can’t do it online either.
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Nina Jankowicz @ninajankowicz.com · 11/01/2026
#ICEOutForGood
Nina Jankowicz with sign that reads “I am a “fucking bitch,” too ❤️”A crowd gathers for a protest
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Nina Jankowicz @ninajankowicz.com · 08/01/2026
The Trump Administration, which claims to care about free speech, has just withdrawn the US from: -a multilateral organization that counters adversarial hybrid threats, among them disinformation -a coalition of 42 govts "working to advance free expression" online along with 64 other intl orgs.
Sec. 2.  Organizations from Which the United States Shall Withdraw.  (a)  Non-United Nations Organizations:

(i)       24/7 Carbon-Free Energy Compact;

(ii)      Colombo Plan Council;

(iii)     Commission for Environmental Cooperation;

(iv)      Education Cannot Wait;

(v)       European Centre of Excellence for Countering

Hybrid Threats;

(vi)      Forum of European National Highway Research Laboratories;

(vii)     Freedom Online Coalition;
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Nina Jankowicz @ninajankowicz.com · 06/01/2026
A few days after Jan 6, I reflected in @foreignaffairs.com on the role of social media platforms & disinfo in the violence. Sadly, my predictions about increasing discord around content moderation and Congressional complicity have held true. Gift link: www.foreignaffairs.com/guest-pass/r...
Twitter’s ban on Trump does not in any way conclude this era; indeed, it may mark a period of intensifying discord as social media platforms struggle to find a consistent and clear line on what speech is acceptable and what isn’t. For years, the same platforms attempted to rationalize their refusal to tackle influential accounts, such as that of the president, that were very clearly in violation of their policies. Using the First Amendment as a shield, platforms argued that leaders such as Trump constituted “public interest exceptions.” Even if Trump posted content that transgressed their rules, social media companies insisted that it wasn’t their job to censor; rather, it was the job of voters to judge Trump harshly for his statements. In the process, these companies ignored the darker possibility that such content might lead to deadly violence. The platforms have now reversed course in an attempt to rewrite the narrative of their complicity. But the decisive, principled action of the past week may nevertheless discredit them in the eyes of many Americans who see the social media bans as censorship. The resulting muddle will only allow extremist movements based on disinformation to persist and grow, with the help of officials such as Representative Matt Gaetz, Republican of Florida, who asserted without evidence, mere hours after the attack, that “antifa” was responsible for the violence on January 6.
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