Secretary of State Marco Rubio recently declared that the State Department had accumulated dossiers characterizing certain Americans (including now members of the Trump administration) as purveyors of misinformation and disinformation. This follows Rubio announcing last month that he would be shutting down a counter-disinformation unit at the State Department.
Rubio is right to criticize such censorial efforts by the government, but his statement also conflicts with the way the Trump administration has punished immigrants for their speech. The tale of these two types of speech shows how censorship of all stripes is wrong and how it can be easily weaponized.
Rubio recently closed the Counter Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference office at the State Department. This was the final incarnation of what had previously been known as the Global Engagement Center, which Congress defunded at the end of 2024.
GEC had been embroiled in a variety of controversies. It funded the British Global Disinformation Index, which tried to blacklist right-wing and libertarian news organizations; it was accused of supporting the development of censorship tools and promoting them to private technology companies; it was accused of attacking congressional critics by falsely suggesting such critics were working with Russian propaganda outlets.
Rubio is right to close this office to prevent such abuse in the future. Too many government agencies and disinformation experts have labeled Americans’ views and speech as disinformation and foreign propaganda. These mistakes have been causing significant discord even as they attempt to stop foreign governments’ attempts to sow discord. The government has a limited role in combating clear-cut cases of foreign malign influence if officials have relevant intelligence and information they can use to educate Americans and our partners around the world and prosecute foreign bad actors.
More fundamentally, Rubio is correct in objecting to the government being involved at all. The problem, according to Rubio, isn’t just that the “wrong people and NGOs” were picked to “police disinformation,” but the problem is that the government was “picking anybody to do this at all.”
Government involvement in countering misinformation will inevitably allow ideological and political bias to seep in, corrupting free expression and the search for truth. Americans, and democracies more generally, settle disputes about what is good, bad, true, or false by letting people debate, discuss, and decide for themselves. This constant process of discussion and challenge is not a weakness, but a strength that empowers us to sift through falsehoods, engage in democratic governance, and make real social progress. We all lose when the government gets in the way of those discussions and debates.
And that’s why Rubio’s actions to strip legal immigrants of their visas for disfavored speech are similarly problematic. As many as several hundred visas seem to have been revoked due to pro-Palestinian speech. Let’s be clear: Participating in violence, forcibly taking over buildings or areas of campus, and vetoing the speech of others through heckling can get you ejected from school and result in the cancellation of your legal right to be in the U.S. Similarly, other violations of law, including lying to federal authorities about your former associations, are justifiable grounds for removal.
But the widespread stripping of visas is not about punishing law-breaking immigrants, but rather punishing those with disfavored views. Attending a protest, writing blogs or op-eds, or making potentially misleading or offensive but not directly threatening statements on social media are not grounds for punishment through visa denial or otherwise.
Rubio has shown his awareness of this principle by challenging foreign censorship by authoritarian regimes such as Cuba or even when closing down the GEC for supporting the targeting of conservative speech. He must apply the same standard here. It simply cannot be U.S. policy that any given U.S. government can favor or reject immigrants based solely on their politics.
Even if you agree with Rubio’s policy of stripping visas based on their holders’ hostile views toward Israel and Jews, this is an incredibly dangerous precedent that will empower future administrations to punish immigrants with other disfavored views, including right-wing views.
‘WEAPONIZED FREE SPEECH’: HOW THE AMERICAN PRESS CAME TO FEAR DISSENT
Rubio wrote: “Our republic is based on putting trust in the ordinary citizenry. Our Founding Fathers took the bold step of believing that ordinary citizens can sift through information, decide which policies and candidates are best, and vote accordingly.”
That logic applies to handling misinformation, content moderation on social media, questions about conflict in the Middle East, and countless other free speech issues. We can’t silence our way to truth, censor our way to progress, or deport our way to settle debates.
David Inserra is a fellow for free expression and technology at the Cato Institute.