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The Censorship Bureau
Confirmed

State Department's Global Engagement Center: GDI funding, closure, and 2025 actions

The State Department's Global Engagement Center (GEC), created in 2016 to counter foreign propaganda, gave the Global Disinformation Index (GDI) $100,000 between 2018 and 2021, according to a State Department spokesperson. Congress let the GEC's authority lapse on Dec. 23, 2024, and in 2025 the Trump administration closed its successor office and took further action against what it called censorship.

Dec 23, 2024
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Whose side it served: Neither party

The GEC was created under Obama and funded GDI across the Trump and Biden years; it lapsed under a bipartisan NDAA, and its successor was closed by the Trump administration.

What the record shows

A State Department spokesperson told the Washington Examiner the GEC's $100,000 to GDI went through its Disinfo Cloud program; GDI, a UK-based group, rated news sites for advertisers, and the National Endowment for Democracy separately funded a GDI affiliate before ending support in 2023. With about 120 staff and a $61 million budget, the GEC terminated 'by operation of law' on Dec. 23, 2024 after an extension was dropped from the NDAA. On April 16, 2025, Secretary of State Marco Rubio closed its successor, the Counter Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference office (R/FIMI), saying it cost more than $50 million a year. On Dec. 23, 2025 the State Department barred five Europeans, including GDI founder Clare Melford and former EU Commissioner Thierry Breton, from entering the U.S. In 2026 the State Department settled a lawsuit by The Daily Wire, The Federalist and Texas with a consent decree that runs through Jan. 31, 2036.

In their words

“terminate by operation of law”— State Department spokesperson, Dec. 23, 2024 · source
“actively silence and censor the voices of Americans”— Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Apr. 16, 2025 · source
“Censorship isn't where you think it is.”— Thierry Breton, on X, Dec. 2025 · source
The other side

The State Department said the GDI grant was not used to blacklist U.S. outlets, and supporters called the GEC 'the eyes and ears on the ground' against foreign information threats. European officials condemned the 2025 visa bans; France said the EU's Digital Services Act has no extraterritorial reach.

Sources

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