The Trump administration has announced the closure of an office to track and counter foreign disinformation, citing freedom of speech concerns.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio released a statement Wednesday announcing the shuttering of the State Department’s Counter Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference, formerly the Global Engagement Center.
“Under the previous administration, this office, which cost taxpayers more than $50 million per year, spent millions of dollars to actively silence and censor the voices of Americans they were supposed to be serving,” said Rubio.
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“This is antithetical to the very principles we should be upholding and inconceivable it was taking place in America. That ends today. Under the administration of President Trump, we will always work to protect the rights of the American people, and this is an important step in continuing to fulfill that commitment.”
CFIMI traces its origins to March 2016, when then-President Barack Obama issued an executive order calling on the State Department to create an office that monitors and counters foreign-based propaganda.
The office was initially primarily focused on countering online propaganda from Islamic terrorist groups, especially the Islamic State, which had controlled large swaths of Iraq and Syria.
Eventually, the office worked on other topics, like what it labeled Russian propaganda designed to influence presidential elections in the United States and conspiracy theories about the COVID-19 pandemic.
An official inspection in September 2022 concluded in part that “the center’s legacy organizational structure, insufficient internal controls to properly manage contractors, and a limited strategic planning process affected its ability to fully meet its mission.”
The inspection commended the office for its August 2020 report on Russian disinformation and its “Tech Challenges program,” which was “a series of regional competitions, advanced innovative solutions to counter adversarial disinformation by funding new technologies and offering a forum to highlight and connect entrepreneurs.”
By December 2023, the entity had around 125 regular staff members, many of whom were contractors, and a budget of approximately $61 million, reports The New York Times.
CFIMI garnered criticism from conservatives and Republican politicians, who accused the State Department entity of periodically engaging in censorship of Americans online.
James P. Rubin, the center’s coordinator, denied the allegations, telling the New York Times in 2023 that his office focused “on how foreign adversaries, primarily China and Russia, use information operations and malign interference to manipulate world opinion.”
“What we do not do is examine or analyze the U.S. information space,” Rubin added.
