State Department Shutters Controversial Global Engagement Center After COVID Censorship Controversy; Biden Admin Rebranded State Dept’s Controversial Global Engagement Center Under New Name — With Same Employees, and other C-Virus related stories
State Department shutters controversial Global Engagement Center after COVID censorship controversy:
Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Wednesday shuttered the State Department’s controversial Global Engagement Center, which under the Biden administration faced heavy criticism from House Republicans who said it was used to censor Americans.
Rubio made the decision “to preserve and protect the freedom for Americans to exercise their free speech” after the center — which was briefly rebranded during former President Joe Biden’s final months in office — “spent millions of dollars to actively silence and censor the voices of Americans they were supposed to be serving.
“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 in a statement.
“That is why today I am announcing the closure of the State Department’s Counter Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference (R/FIMI), formerly known as the Global Engagement Center.”
The former Florida senator called out the “previous administration” in the statement, charging that its handling of the now-closed center was “antithetical to the very principals we should be upholding and inconceivable it was taking place in America.”
The State Department had previously notified Congress of its intention to close the GEC, which had effectively stopped operating in December after lawmakers voted against funding it for the current fiscal year.
Republicans began taking aim at the GEC after journalist Matt Taibbi revealed the Biden administration had used it to pressure American social media platforms early in the COVID-19 pandemic to censor various individuals and news organizations, purportedly to counter “disinformation,” such as theories that the virus leaked out of a laboratory in China. —>READ MORE HERE
Biden admin ‘rebranding’ State Dept’s controversial Global Engagement Center under new name — with same employees: report
The State Department reportedly notified Congress last month that it plans to shuffle staffers and money from the controversial and now-shuttered Global Engagement Center to a new office aimed at countering “foreign information manipulation and interference.”
The Global Engagement Center (GEC), which has come under fire from several House Republicans who claim it pushed for the censorship of Americans, ostensibly ceased operations on Dec. 23 after congressional lawmakers refused to reauthorize the GEC in recent spending legislation.
Senior Republican staffers who have reviewed the Biden administration’s plans in response to the closure of the GEC told the Washington Examiner on Thursday that it appears the agency is merely “rebranding,” and fear the new office will continue the same sort of censorship work that the GEC had previously been accused of conducting.
“Should the authority for the GEC not be extended, the [State Department] plans to realign 51 employees and associated funding from the GEC to a proposed Counter Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference (R/FIMI) Hub reporting to the Undersecretary for Public Diplomacy (R),” read a notification letter sent to congressional lawmakers on Dec. 6, according to the Washington Examiner.
The GEC, established in 2016, had a budget of about $61 million and 120 people on staff.
The planning document indicated that $29.4 million in GEC funding would be shifted to the new office.
The letter noted that the remaining GEC employees and funding would be sent over to the Bureaus of African Affairs, East Asian and Pacific Affairs, European and Eurasian Affairs, and other offices.
The plan to establish a new “information manipulation” hub at the State Department is expected to trigger congressional investigations, the outlet reported. —>READ MORE HERE
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