The United States Department of State announced on Wednesday the closure of the information manipulation service and foreign interference (Counter Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference), inherited from the Global Committee Center (GEC), an entity founded in 2016 to counter the disinformation campaigns from countries like Russia or China. A controversial decision taken by the head of American diplomacy, Marco Rubio, who invoked the need to “defend the freedom of expression of the Americans”.
“Under the previous administration, this service, which costs more than $ 50 million to the taxpayer each year, spent millions to silence the votes of Americans that he was supposed to defend,” accused the Secretary of State. He added that this constituted “the antithesis of the very principles that we should defend” and that it was “inconceivable in a country like America”.
Embassy closure and program stopping
This closure comes in a tense budgetary context: American diplomacy plans to reduce its expenses by 50 % via embassies and the abandonment of cooperation programs. Already in the viewfinder of Republican elected officials for several years, the service had seen its funding blocked at the end of 2024 by the congress. In 2023, Elon Musk also described the GEC as “worst censor within the US State” and “threat to democracy”.
Our file on the United States
Founded on the eve of Donald Trump’s first election, the GEC was in particular to fight against disinformation campaigns targeting the US elections. A report by the special prosecutor Robert Mueller had confirmed, in 2019, a systematic interference of Russia in the 2016 presidential election, pointing to the coordinated use of hackers and “trolls” on social networks.
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