The Downfall of the Global Engagement Center and Disappearing Guardrails Against Disinformation

On April 16, United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced the closure of the State Department’s Counter Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference (R/FIMI) (previously known as the Global Engagement Center, or GEC) in a press release that argued the office was used to “actively silence and censor the voices of Americans they were supposed to be serving.” Secretary Rubio also published an op-ed in The Federalist that day, declaring that the “American people don’t need an obscure agency to ‘protect’ them from lies,” bringing a disagreement between the conservative online magazine and GEC full circle. Yet, by not forging a bipartisan consensus through engaging deeply on what freedom of speech really means, the US has taken a series of steps that unilaterally disarm its cybersecurity defenses and guardrails against disinformation, precisely when it ought to be strengthening them.

A previous version of the GEC website, which officially shut down on December 23, 2024, stated that the Center was envisioned as a “data-driven body leading US interagency efforts in proactively addressing foreign adversaries’ attempts to undermine US interests using disinformation and propaganda.” GEC was originally established within the Department of State as the Center for Strategic Counterterrorism Communications (CSCC) in 2011. And, R/FIMI, its successor office, existed only briefly after GEC.

The closure of R/FIMI has taken place at the same time that other US security guardrails are being dismantled. The Trump administration fired the director and deputy director of the National Security Agency, and the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) staff responsible for countering foreign influence operations were placed on administrative leave in February. On April 18, the National Science Foundation terminated support for “research with the goal of combating ‘misinformation,’ ‘disinformation,’ and ‘malinformation’” on the grounds of potential infringement of constitutionally protected speech rights. Among the groups losing funding from USAID’s closure were pro-democracy internet freedom and digital rights groups around the world, with as much as $250 million in annual allocations for "Independent Media and Free Flow of Information" foreign assistance at risk. Additional US State Department plans include “sweeping changes” to eliminate 132 offices and 700 positions, announced on April 22.

But efforts to challenge GEC initiatives started earlier. The State of Texas and conservative media publications, including The Federalist and the Daily Wire, sued the State Department in 2023, arguing that GEC “weaponized this authority to violate the First Amendment and suppress Americans’ constitutionally-protected speech.” The complaint questioned the GEC’s “censorship” technologies. A news release by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton called the censorship of conservative news organizations “one of the most egregious government operations to censor the American press.”

The years-long dispute between the GEC and its conservative opponents came to a head in 2023, when Republicans blocked the center’s reauthorization by Congress. James P. Rubin, previously the Special Envoy and Coordinator of the GEC, countered in a December 2023 interview with The New York Times that the GEC’s focus was “how foreign adversaries, primarily China and Russia, use information operations and malign interference to manipulate world opinion” and said, “what we do not do is examine or analyze the US information space.” Rubin served as the Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs in the Clinton Administration from 1997 to 2000.

GEC’s history is brief. The National Defense Authorization Act in 2017 expanded its role to “to recognize, understand, expose, and counter foreign state and non-state propaganda and disinformation efforts aimed at undermining United States national security interests.” The GEC’s goals included understanding trends in foreign propaganda, researching “countries and populations” most vulnerable to disinformation, and reporting on “tactics, techniques, and procedures of foreign information warfare.” Against a rising wave of disinformation, the timing of GEC’s expansion seemed appropriate. A 2016 Pew Survey found that 64% of Americans agreed that “fake news has left Americans confused about basic facts.” A panel of 50 experts interviewed by BBC Future Now in 2017 named “the breakdown of trusted information” one of the most critical challenges in the 21st century.

Although it came under increasing scrutiny, the GEC’s reporting spoke to some of its potential. The GEC published fact sheets on the expanding capabilities of Russian state-funded RT (formerly “Russia Today”) and the Kremlin’s information agency Africa Initiative, which it identified as “a platform to ‘build bridges’ between Russia and Africa.” In 2021, the GEC and the Department of Homeland Security co-authored an online game called Harmony Square, designed to educate users about disinformation techniques and build “mental defenses against those same techniques.” In June 2022, the GEC announced a partnership with Debunk EU, the European NGO dedicated to researching the disinformation space and creating media literacy campaigns to combat disinformation. In January 2024, GEC initiated a “Framework to Counter Foreign State Information Manipulation” to coordinate with US allies to fight foreign disinformation. Other GEC publications included special reports on propaganda, digital authoritarianism, and a series of media notes.

Meanwhile, tensions were rising. The Texas attorney general, The Federalist, and the Daily Wire alleged that a GEC-funded private entity “Park Capital Investment Group, LLC” was using “Disinfo Cloud”––a repository of open source “Countering Propaganda and Disinformation” tools (CPD)–– to target “American press” and “American speakers.” Specifically, The Federalist and the Daily Wire said they were flagged by some of the platform tools on “lists of disfavored news outlets,” therefore driving “blue-chip” advertisers away.

The downfall of GEC and R/FIMI would appear to be a victory for conservative media outlets. However, cybersecurity operations have traditionally not been a partisan effort. The bipartisan Cybersecurity Information Sharing Extension Act was introduced a day before the R/FIMI termination, announcing work to improve cybersecurity information sharing between the government and private sector. Pulling back on initiatives to monitor disinformation could lead to increased security vulnerabilities. Rather than reorganize R/FIMI, its demise is prominently displayed to allies and adversaries alike, which in turn can create even larger incentives for mis- and disinformation campaigns targeted to the public both domestically and globally. Already, there has been a reported spike in Russian media reports suggesting “US allies no longer trusted that American defense companies would be reliable suppliers.”

A 2021 study by the Knight Foundation-Ipson on “Free Speech in America Post-2020” found that Americans “of all walks of life appreciate freedom of speech and recognize its benefits to society and democracy” and “believe in the importance of protecting First Amendment rights.” Yet, partisan differences have carved out deeply “wide-ranging views” on what freedom of speech is and what protections against false and misleading information are appropriate. The study concluded that speech rights have become “a battleground in the ongoing partisan conflict.”

Nevertheless, such conflicts should not impede continued investments in cybersecurity defenses, especially at a time when cyberattacks have become increasingly sophisticated, can be automated and supercharged by AI, and have a severe impact on the social and financial well-being of businesses and everyday people everywhere. It seems at least strategically questionable to lower the nation’s defenses unilaterally without attempting to negotiate concessions from its adversaries. America’s national interests require more investment in cybersecurity, not less.