In a compelling analysis featured on Unherd, author Jacob Siegel explores the formation of what he terms the American “information state,” detailing how the infrastructure of state power has been repurposed to control public discourse. Siegel contends that the Biden administration oversaw the convergence of two distinct initiatives: the government’s reaction to the Covid-19 pandemic and the utilization of counterinsurgency strategies to address concerns regarding domestic extremism. By leveraging a sprawling public-private surveillance apparatus—originally designed to neutralize foreign interference—the government successfully pivoted its focus inward, effectively treating its own citizens as the primary targets of political management.
The Covid-19 pandemic acted as a primary catalyst for this shift, providing the government with an unprecedented opportunity to expand its influence over the physical lives of citizens. Siegel argues that the emergency conditions of the lockdowns allowed federal agencies to test the limits of their control and the public’s threshold for compliance without risking organized resistance. This period served as a training ground for the information state, integrating governmental oversight into everyday civilian life and solidifying a new governance model that prioritized centralized narrative control over traditional democratic norms.
Central to this transformation was the support offered by an eager academic elite, who provided the intellectual framework for these interventions. A pivotal, although controversial, contribution came from Harvard academics who introduced the classification of “malinformation.” Defined as speech that is factually accurate but potentially harmful to the interests of organizations or institutions, this term provided the government with a mechanism to delegitimize dissent under the guise of public safety. By adopting this terminology, authorities gained the subjective power to police speech not based on its veracity, but on its impact on governmental agendas.
The operational expansion of CISA (the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency) underscores this systemic pivot. Within the initial months of the Biden administration, CISA broadened its mandate far beyond its original mission of protecting physical infrastructure from foreign threats. The agency shifted its focus toward “MDM”—a catch-all category for misinformation, disinformation, and malinformation—effectively declaring that it would remain “responsive to current events” within the United States. This structural change finalized the agency’s domestication, transforming it from a defensive technical body into a political arbiter capable of suppressing speech that deviates from official narratives.
In his upcoming book, The Information State, Siegel poses a provocative challenge to the prevailing establishment mantra. While the public is frequently warned that disinformation poses an existential threat to democracy, Siegel asks if the anti-disinformation movement is itself the real danger. He suggests that the entire apparatus has become a weaponized system designed specifically to extinguish legitimate political dissent. By framing skepticism of authority as a security risk, the information state effectively shields power structures from accountability, turning the tools of digital safety into instruments of political suppression.
Observers, such as the X contributor Skepticalifornia, have drawn unsettling parallels between these modern bureaucratic neologisms and the concepts popularized in George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-four. The insistence on using sterile, academic labels like “malinformation” is viewed as an exercise in functional “Newspeak,” an attempt to make heretical thoughts unthinkable by linguistic regulation. While the broader public has resisted adopting this government-curated vocabulary, the continued administrative push to institutionalize these terms reflects a persistent effort to redefine the boundaries of acceptable speech and reshape the American political discourse from the top down.