Secretary of State Marco Rubio has officially ordered the closure of the State Department’s Counter Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference (R/FIMI) office, ending a controversial chapter in what he described as a “shameful” period of federally sanctioned speech suppression.
The move dismantles the only formal office in the department tasked with countering foreign propaganda but, as Secretary Rubio and many others have noticed, it had morphed into something far more troubling: a taxpayer-funded engine that repeatedly ended up silencing American voices.
“For centuries, the United States served as a beacon of hope for millions of people around the world,” Rubio said in a statement. “Over the last decade though, individuals in America have been slandered, fired, charged, and even jailed for simply voicing their opinions…That ends today.”
His decision to eliminate R/FIMI follows years of escalating concern over how programs meant to counter foreign disinformation have instead repeatedly targeted domestic speech.
The office, created in late 2024 as a scaled-down continuation of the now-defunct Global Engagement Center (GEC), claimed to focus exclusively on foreign influence campaigns. Yet evidence increasingly showed that both R/FIMI and its predecessor were entangled in activities that penalized Americans for their political views.
While framed as a defensive measure against foreign adversaries like China, Russia, and Iran, the actual outcomes of these efforts routinely involved actions that resulted in blacklisting American media outlets, throttling their reach online, and labeling dissenting opinions as dangerous misinformation. The censorship was indirect but impactful: through partnerships with nonprofits and tech platforms, GEC-funded projects influenced what Americans could say, see, and share.
Hellbound and Down 