Posted on 04/17/2025 9:03:59 AM PDT by Navy Patriot
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said he was shutting down a State Department office that had sought to counter foreign disinformation, accusing it of censorship and wasting U.S. taxpayer money.
Rubio in a statement on Wednesday said he was closing the State Department's Counter Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference office, previously known as the Global Engagement Center.
The GEC had already shut down in December 2024 under former Democrat President Joe Biden after Congress did not extend its mandate that was set to expire. It was reorganized to create a different public diplomacy office known as R/FIMI.
The GEC had come under intense criticism from some Republicans who said it was straying from its mission, accusing it of disfavoring opinions by conservative media in particular.
Billionaire Elon Musk, a close ally of President Donald Trump who has led an unprecedented push to shrink the U.S. federal government since the latter took office on Jan. 20, had said in a 2023 post on X that the center was "the worst offender" in U.S. government censorship and media manipulation. Thousands of employees have been fired in the push to downsize the federal government, which has also led to the dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development.
The White House has accused the former administration of censoring Americans' speech in order to suppress views the government did not approve of.
On Wednesday, Rubio said the office formerly called the GEC cost American taxpayers more than $50 million per year and "spent millions of dollars to actively silence and censor the voices of Americans they were supposed to be serving."
"This is antithetical to the very principles we should be upholding and inconceivable it was taking place in America," Rubio said.
(Excerpt) Read more at newsmax.com ...
Zelensky, Nazis and Zeepers Hardest Hit.
Foreign Disinformation? We’ve got CNN for that, thank you.
ABCNNBCBS?...............
I got you on the Zeepers but this feels much bigger than Ukraine.
It feels like something the EU started and then they pushed it to the rest of the world.
The question is who is really behind it?
WEF...maybe but doesn’t feel right.
Hmmm
. Disinformation Governance Board” Nina Jankowicz - Mary Poppins (Disinformation Song) ..... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNcEVYq2qUg .... rt 45 seconds.
Senator Kennedy from Louisiana, made me laugh, when he said it was quite precocious.
What is classified as "Disinformation" is decided by whom has POWER over the State Department Counter Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference Office.
Unless The State Department Counter Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference Office doesn't exist.
Does this mean they’ll stop blocking foreign sites they don’t like? I really resented it when they blocked Russian sites. I’m an adult and can decide for myself whether or not it’s disinformation. I like to see what the Russians (or Iranians or Chinese) are saying to get their POV, not that I believe everything they say.
They were rather incompetent, though. I was really cheesed off when they blocked the Strategic Culture site, but the clever Russkies got around that by shifting it from strategicculture.ru to strategicculture.su. Ha, the old suffix for the Soviet Union, long out of use but still functioning.
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