Rubio announced that the center — which was briefly rebranded towards the final days of the Biden Administration — will be closed “to preserve and protect the freedom for Americans to exercise their free speech.”

“Over the last decade, Americans have been slandered, fired, charged, and even jailed for simply voicing their opinions. That ends today,” the secretary announced in an X post.

He concluded the post by announcing the immediate closure of the department‘s Counter Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference, formerly the Global Engagement Center (GEC), which, “cost taxpayers more than $50 million per year and actively silenced and censored the voices of Americans they were supposed to be serving.”

The GEC faced intense scrutiny from Republican lawmakers after independent reporter Matt Taibbi uncovered evidence that it was used to pressure social media companies to censor American citizens over opinions the Biden Administration deemed problematic.

But the list was full of ordinary Americans, many with no connection to India and no clue about Indian politics,” Taibbi wrote.

The DFLR also claimed American citizens were engaging in deliberate “disinformation” campaigns by questioning the narrative on COVID-19, including the theory that the virus originated in a Wuhan viral research facility.