Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that the Counter Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference (R/FIMI), formerly known as the Global Engagement Center (GEC), has closed. Conservatives criticized the center for its censorship activities.
“Freedom of speech and expression have been a cornerstone of what it means to be an American citizen,” Rubio said in a statement. “For centuries, the United States served as a beacon of hope for millions of people around the world. Over the last decade though, individuals in America have been slandered, fired, charged, and even jailed for simply voicing their opinions.”
“That is not an America our Founding Fathers would recognize,” Rubio declared.
“It is the responsibility of every government official to continuously work to preserve and protect the freedom for Americans to exercise their free speech,” he said, adding that the office “spent millions of dollars to actively silence and censor the voices of Americans they were supposed to be serving.” He called the activity “antithetical to the very principles we should be upholding.”
“That ends today,” Rubio asserted. “Under the administration of President Trump, we will always work to protect the rights of the American people, and this is an important step in continuing to fulfill that commitment.”
Open the Books reported that the former White House administration spent more than a quarter of a billion taxpayer dollars on “misinformation” efforts.
From 2021, the Biden-Harris administration put forward $267 million in research grants involving so-called “misinformation.” At least $127 million was dedicated specifically to study “misinformation’s” spread and persuade the American public to “go along with Covid-related public health recommendations and mandates,” the report said.
One grant of $200,000 was spent targeting President-elect Donald Trump. “The grant resulted in a paper suggesting populist leaders and movements in various countries kept people from coming together in ‘solidarity’ and public officials need to have the ‘main say’ on health guidance next time,” Open the Books wrote.
The expenditures on “misinformation” included grants supporting AI tools censoring speech.
