The State Department office countering foreign disinformation is being eliminated, officials say

The R/FIMI (R/Fimi) is a small office in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which tracks and campaigns of foreign misinformation.

At the closure of R/Fimi, Darren Betty, Darren Betty, won the great victory of controversial representation, a great victory over conservative critics who claimed to control the voices of the province. It was created at the end of 2024, and it was reorganized by the GCC Center (GEC), a larger office with a similar task that has been long criticized by the conservatives who claimed that, despite his international mission, was subject to control over American conservatives. In 2023, Elon Musk described the center as “the worst committed to control over the US government [and] Media manipulation “and” a threat to our democracy. ”

The execution of the office leaves the Ministry of Foreign Affairs without a way to confront the growing disinformation campaigns actively from foreign governments such as Russia, Iran and China’s campaigns.

Shortly after publishing, employees at R/Fimi received an email, and invited them to a meeting 11:15 am with Beattie, where the employees were informed that the office and their jobs were canceled.

Do you have more information about this story or advice for something that we should report? Using a non -action device, you can access the reporter to the signal at Eileenguo.15 or Tips@technologyreview.com.

Then, Foreign Minister Marco Rubio confirmed our reports in a blog post FederalWho filed a lawsuit against GEC last year on the pretext that she had violated freedom of expression. “It is a pleasure to announce that the Foreign Ministry is taking a decisive step towards keeping the president’s promise to liberate the American discourse by canceling the body forever known as the Global Participation Center (GEC),” he wrote. “We have ended the government sponsored in the United States through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs,” said Liek Benz, a former Trump official in the first -term and who was also reported to have correct opinions, during an interview with YouTube.

Control claims

For years, conservative voices inside and outside the large technical government accused the censorship of conservative views – often GEC was receiving this censorship.

GEC had its roots as a center of strategic communications to combat terrorism (CSCC), which was created by an executive order from the Obama era, but turned its mission to combat propaganda and mislead foreign governments and terrorist organizations in 2016, to become the global participation center. She has always focused explicitly on international information space, but some of the organizations she funded also operated in the United States. It closed last December after the re -mandate of its budget of $ 61 million by Republicans in Congress, who accused it of helping the American province’s voices to maintain technology.

R/Fimi had a similar goal to fight foreign information, but it was smaller: the newly created office had a $ 51.9 million budget, and was a small employee, by mid -April, had decreased to only 40 employees, from 125 GEC employees. At a meeting on Wednesday morning, these employees were told that they would be placed on administrative leave and end within 30 days.