ICTworks

The recent U.S. elections altered our expectations for USAID under the Trump 2.0 administration that starts in January. However, policy changes may be impacting government priorities and operations even before the next administration takes power.

This week saw the closure of the State Department’s Global Engagement Center (GEC), a move that raises important questions about the future of America’s fight against foreign disinformation. Is this the GEC the first casualty of the incoming Trump administration, and a sign of broader changes to come?

The Global Engagement Center

The Global Engagement Center was a specialized unit within the U.S. State Department, established in 2016 to combat foreign propaganda and disinformation. With an annual budget of $61 million and a staff of approximately 120 people, the GEC was tasked with tracking and exposing foreign disinformation narratives in countries outside the United States.

The GEC was created in response to growing concerns about the impact of foreign disinformation campaigns on global affairs. Its primary mission was to counter malign propaganda and disinformation from foreign actors, particularly from adversarial nations like Government of the Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China. For example, it created informative, fact-based reports like:

• The Kremlin’s Efforts to Spread Deadly Disinformation in Africa
• How the PRC Seeks to Reshape the Global Information Environment

The center aimed to protect U.S. interests abroad by exposing and countering false narratives that could undermine democratic processes and international stability. The GEC achieved several additional successes, including:

• Technological Innovation: The center successfully leveraged emerging technologies to combat disinformation, developing technical solutions to understand and analyze the rapidly evolving information space.
• International Collaboration: The GEC’s work was praised by foreign allies who found its analysis and mapping of Kremlin and PRC state content extremely useful.
• Thwarting Disinformation Campaigns: The center played a crucial role in exposing and countering Kremlin-backed disinformation campaigns in various countries.
• Capacity Building: The GEC invested in building up expertise and personnel dedicated to combating foreign disinformation, creating a specialized unit within the U.S. government focused on this critical issue.

GEC Lost Support from Congress

Sadly, the center faced years of scrutiny from Republican lawmakers who accused it of overreaching by allegedly censoring and surveilling American citizens. While these accusations were baseless – the GEC did not operate domestically – they fit within a larger narrative that most media organizations censored conservative viewpoints.

Elon Musk, an adviser to President-elect Trump, criticized the GEC, calling it the worst offender in U.S. government censorship and media manipulation, apparently because it flagged Twitter accounts as Russian personas and proxies based on tweeting or re-tweeting COVID-19 misinformation.

He led a push to reject the bipartisan Federal budget spending agreement that would’ve extend the center’s authority into 2031. The final version of defense authorization legislation required the Global Engagement Center to terminate operations on December 23, 2024.

A Loss for Digital Development

The GEC was using artificial intelligence solutions – including a sentiment model, a topic model, and text similarity technology – like its mis- dis- and malinformation analysis peers in academia and the private sector.

One AI tool was the Text Similarity Analysis – a Natural Language Processing technique to identify and analyze duplicate or similar texts. The algorithm was able to ingest thousands of digital media publications or social media posts and group duplicate or similar texts, identifying potential coordination between different authors.

The State Department now does not have a dedicated office for countering disinformation abroad for the first time since 2016.

The closure of GEC will impact America’s ability to support allies in countering disinformation campaigns, potentially weakening international efforts. U.S. officials and foreign political leaders tracking disinformation worry that democratic elections in Taiwan, Moldova, Georgia, Romania and other countries will now succumb to malign Kremlin and PRC propaganda campaigns.

At the minimum, the closure hinders our ability to systematically counter disinformation, and signals a broader shift in foreign policy priorities under the incoming administration.

First Foreign Assistance Casualty of Trump 2.0?

The timing and circumstances of the GEC’s closure strongly suggest that it may indeed be one of the first casualties of the incoming Trump administration. It also signals a potential shift in the U.S. approach to information warfare, raising questions about future strategies to combat foreign malign influence.

As we move forward, it will be crucial to monitor how the U.S. government plans to address the ongoing threat of foreign disinformation in the absence of the GEC.  The information landscape continues to evolve. The USG must develop and implement effective strategies to safeguard against foreign propaganda and ensure the dissemination of accurate information.

Will new initiatives emerge to fill this gap, or will we see a fundamental shift in how America approaches these challenges on the global stage?