WASHINGTON — Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Wednesday shuttered the State Department’s controversial Global Engagement Center, which under the Biden administration faced heavy criticism from House Republicans who said it was used to censor Americans.
Rubio made the decision “to preserve and protect the freedom for Americans to exercise their free speech” after the center — which was briefly rebranded during former President Joe Biden’s final months in office — “spent millions of dollars to actively silence and censor the voices of Americans they were supposed to be serving.
“It is the responsibility of every government official to continuously work to preserve and protect the freedom for Americans to exercise their free speech,” he said in a statement.
“That is why today I am announcing the closure of the State Department’s Counter Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference (R/FIMI), formerly known as the Global Engagement Center.”
The former Florida senator called out the “previous administration” in the statement, charging that its handling of the now-closed center was “antithetical to the very principals we should be upholding and inconceivable it was taking place in America.”
The State Department had previously notified Congress of its intention to close the GEC, which had effectively stopped operating in December after lawmakers voted against funding it for the current fiscal year.
Republicans began taking aim at the GEC after journalist Matt Taibbi revealed the Biden administration had used it to pressure American social media platforms early in the COVID-19 pandemic to censor various individuals and news organizations, purportedly to counter “disinformation,” such as theories that the virus leaked out of a laboratory in China.
“We learned Twitter, Facebook, Google, and other companies developed a formal system for taking in moderation ‘requests’ from every corner of government: the FBI, DHS, HHS, DOD, the Global Engagement Center at State, even the CIA,” Taibbi testified to Congress in March 2023, shortly after his “Twitter Files” expose on the GEC.
The Washington Examiner later uncovered a $100,000 grant GEC made to the London-based Global Disinformation Index (GDI) in 2021 and 2022 — a media monitoring nonprofit that would go on to deem 10 outlets, including The Post, as purveyors of “disinformation.”
While the agency’s stated goal was to “proactively address foreign adversaries’ attempts to undermine US interests using disinformation and propaganda,” Rubio said the State Department program was actually targeting Americans — something he wouldn’t stand for.
“Freedom of speech and expression have been a cornerstone of what it means to be an American citizen. For centuries, the United States served as a beacon of hope for millions of people around the world,” Rubio said. “Over the last decade though, individuals in America have been slandered, fired, charged, and even jailed for simply voicing their opinions.
“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.”
