Rubio shuts State Dept. foreign disinformation office, citing censorship
Secretary of State Marco Rubio attends a White House meeting earlier this month. Photo by Jabin Botsford / The Washington Post
The Washington Post
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Wednesday that the State Department is closing an office designed to counter foreign disinformation, stating that the effort had “spent millions of dollars to actively silence and censor the voices of Americans.”
In a live interview promoted by the State Department announcing the move, Rubio said he had authorized an investigation into how the program had been used to “deplatform” people from social networks. “We had government-sponsored censorship in the United States through the State Department,” Rubio told conservative activist Mike Benz in the interview.
The closure of the Counter Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference office, known as R/FIMI, marks a significant win for conservatives who claimed they were targeted by government-sponsored disinformation efforts. R/FIMI was founded from the remnants of the Global Engagement Center (GEC), a larger office that was closed late last year after Republicans blocked its funding.
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