Rubio Announces Closure of Office Tracking Foreign Disinformation Over Censorship Concerns

Secretary of State Marco Rubio on April 16 announced the closure of an office in the State Department that tracked foreign disinformation, saying it had censored Americans. Rubio, writing in an op-ed in The Federalist, accused the Counter Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference office, previously known as the Global Engagement Center (GEC), and its staff of using taxpayers’ dollars to enforce censorship, particularly on online conservative voices. He also addressed the news during an interview live-streamed on the Department’s website, saying, “We ended government-sponsored censorship in the United States through the State Department.” Originally founded as the Counterterrorism Communication Center in 2007 to root out narratives from Al-Qaeda and other terrorist organizations, it became the GEC in 2016 under the Obama administration with an expanded mission to broaden efforts countering foreign disinformation....