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Mike Benz@MikeBenzCyber · Apr 16, 2025

BREAKING 🚨 The US State Department has just placed all 30 full-time staff at the Global Engagement Center’s remnant…

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Summary

The US State Department has eliminated all 50 full-time staff positions at the Counter Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference office (R-FIMI), ending its $65 million in funding and terminating the successor office to the Global Engagement Center. This action follows the removal of over 100 contractors last month and is part of a restructuring to prevent what officials describe as weaponized censorship operations.

Summarized by ThreadOut AI from the full thread. May miss nuance — read the thread below.

  1. #1

    BREAKING 🚨 The US State Department has just placed all 30 full-time staff at the Global Engagement Center’s remnant known as R-FIMI on leave, eliminated all 50 full-time staff positions and delivered a notice to Congress ending R-FIMI’s existence and $65 million in funding 🧵👇

  2. #2

    This historic development today was made possible by @SecRubio and Acting Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy @DarrenJBeattie, as part of a complete restructuring of the State Department’s activities and capacities to prevent the abuses and weaponization of the past.

  3. #3

    @SecRubio @DarrenJBeattie The development today is the State Department’s initiation of a RIF (Reduction In Force) that will permanently end the positions at GEC / R-FIMI, so there is no more reshuffling of positions or simple renamings of the office to carry out the same malign censorship efforts.

  4. #4

    @SecRubio @DarrenJBeattie While GEC was formally sunset late last year after a showdown in Congress to deny its reauthorization, the Biden State Department got around this by putting GEC’s staff and operations under a new name: the Counter Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference office (R-FIMI).

  5. #5

    @SecRubio @DarrenJBeattie Last month, @SecRubio and Acting Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy @DarrenJBeattie terminated 100+ contractors that R-FIMI worked with, which formed a deep partner web between censorship operatives in the private sector and the muscle of the US gov’t to go after speech.

  6. #6

    @SecRubio @DarrenJBeattie But in gov’t, it’s easier to terminate a contractor than a public employee. The structuring of today’s move as Stage 1 of a RIF to eliminate the office and dissolve the office entirely prevents the possibility of bureaucratic delays that come from contesting firings.