US shuts down its
‘propaganda and censorship’ agency
The US State Department’s Global Engagement Center (GEC) has shut down after Republicans cut its funding. The agency was responsible for spreading propaganda abroad and, according to conservatives, censoring dissident thought at home.
The GEC announced on Monday that it would cease operations by the end of that day. “The State Department has consulted with Congress regarding next steps,” the statement added.
The organization employed around 120 people and had an annual budget of $61 million. Established in 2016, its stated goal was to “recognize, understand, expose, and counter foreign state and non-state propaganda and disinformation efforts.”
In practice, the GEC spearheaded complex propaganda campaigns of its own. In two campaigns, the agency funded video games aimed at teaching children about the supposed dangers of anti-American narratives, releasing them in the UK, Ukraine, Latvia, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia.
During the coronavirus pandemic, the GEC funneled money to a range of NGOs which then compiled lists of social media accounts supposedly spreading “disinformation” about the virus and its origins, which were then presented to the platforms to be banned or removed. Many of the accounts belonged to what Twitter’s former trust and safety chief, Yoel Roth, called “ordinary Americans,” raising concerns among conservatives that the GEC was violating its prohibition on operating within the US.
In 2023, the GEC was forced to cut ties with George Soros’ ‘Global Disinformation Initiative’, after it emerged that the agency was paying Soros’ organization to compile lists of “high risk” news outlets to use in an advertiser boycott campaign. These news sites were predominantly right-leaning and American-based.
X owner Elon Musk called the GEC a “threat to our democracy” last year, describing the agency as the “worst offender in US government censorship [and] media manipulation.”
Musk was instrumental in finally shutting down the GEC. A mammoth 1,547-page spending bill put before the House of Representatives by Speaker Mike Johnson last week would have preserved funding for the agency, until Musk threatened to fund primary election challenges to any Republican who voted for it.
Musk decried the bill – which also included pay raises for lawmakers – as “criminal,” “outrageous,” “unconscionable,” and ultimately “one of the worst bills ever written.” President-elect Donald Trump and Vice President-elect J.D. Vance then released a joint statement against the bill, forcing Johnson to replace it with a trimmed-down piece of legislation totaling less than 120 pages.
This Musk-approved bill failed in a 235-174 vote, with 38 Republicans joining 197 Democrats to block its passage. It eventually passed after Republicans added a section suspending the US debt ceiling for two years, a move that will add trillions more to the federal government’s $36 trillion debt.
Yikes!
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What? Did Al Jezeera accidentally tell the truth about what's going on in Jenin? Or, is this an indication that Qatar is not willing to play the Palestinian propaganda game any longer? Is this a pre-Trump adjustment in policy by Qatar?
Palestinian Authority takes Al Jazeera off air
after coverage of Jenin clashes
The Palestinian Authority on Wednesday suspended Al Jazeera broadcasts across the Palestinian territories, accusing the Qatar-based channel of “interference” in Palestine’s internal affairs. The suspension order came after Al Jazeera covered clashes between Palestinian security forces and resistance fighters in Jenin in the West Bank.
The Palestinian Authority on Wednesday ordered the suspension of broadcasts by the Qatar-based Al Jazeera across the Palestinian territories, accusing the network of airing "inciting content", official media reported.
"The specialised ministerial committee, comprising the ministries of culture, interior and communications, has decided to suspend broadcasts and freeze all activities of Al Jazeera satellite channel and its office in Palestine," the official Wafa news agency said.
"The decision also includes temporarily freezing the work of all journalists, employees, crews and affiliated channels until their legal status is rectified due to Al Jazeera's violations of the laws and regulations in force in Palestine," the report said.
"This decision comes in response to Al Jazeera's insistence on broadcasting inciting content and reports characterised by misinformation, incitement, sedition and interference in Palestinian internal affairs," it added.
An Al Jazeera employee contacted by AFP confirmed that the network's office in Ramallah had received a suspension order on Wednesday.
Tensions between the network and the Fatah movement of Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas have risen in recent weeks due to the channel's coverage of clashes between Palestinian security forces and resistance fighters in Jenin.
The Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority's decision comes more than three months after Israeli forces raided the network's office in Ramallah.
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The network is already banned from broadcasting from Israel amid a long-running feud with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's government, which has only worsened during the ongoing war in Gaza.
(AFP)
