Executive Summary

At a time when Russian, Chinese, and Iranian covert influence operations against the American public are at an all time high, United States institutions oriented to counter disinformation and misinformation are currently challenged by closure, shifts in policy, and political pressure. The possibility of the shutdown of the State Department’s Global Engagement Center (GEC), the closure of the Stanford Internet Observatory (SIO), and the 2022 disbandment of the Disinformation Governance Board (DGB) show there is a weakening in the existing counter-disinformation framework. Since the 1987 demise of the Federal Communications Commission’s Fairness Doctrine, efforts to revive balanced media regulations–and counterefforts to keep those regulations off the books–have only complicated the matter.

Leadership changes under the incoming Trump administration suggest that there will be a new focus on dismantling perceived “censorship”. This will take the place of stronger measures to counter misinformation, disinformation, and state-sponsored agitprop. Project 2025 threatens to affect efforts in the fight against election misinformation, for example. There are signals of a coming policy shift that might have significant implications for national security. This is especially relevant considering that recent foreign information campaigns have affected electoral processes and are only getting more sophisticated and widespread.  

Images Sourced From: Gage Skidmore