State Department’s Global Engagement Center — accused of pushing censorship to combat online ‘disinformation’ — shuts down

The GEC, established in 2016, had a budget of about $61 million and 120 people on staff. - Victor Nava

The State Department’s controversial Global Engagement Center (GEC) shut down this week after congressional lawmakers nixed reauthorizing the agency in spending legislation to keep the government open...

• The GEC came under fire from House Republicans after journalist Matt Taibbi uncovered evidence that it pressured US social media platforms early in the COVID-19 pandemic to censor Americans online, purportedly to counter “disinformation,” such as theories that the virus leaked out of a laboratory in China.
• “We learned Twitter, Facebook, Google, and other companies developed a formal system for taking in moderation ‘requests’ from every corner of government: the FBI, DHS, HHS, DOD, the Global Engagement Center at State, even the CIA,” Taibbi testified to Congress in March 2023, shortly after his “Twitter Files” expose on the GEC...
• The Washington Examiner later uncovered a $100,000 grant GEC made to the London-based Global Disinformation Index (GDI) in 2021 and 2022 — a media monitoring nonprofit that would go on to deem 10 outlets, including The Post, as purveyors of “disinformation.”...