US leading global alliance to counter foreign government disinformation

People protest outside Meta's head office in Dublin, calling on social media firms to do more to counter Russian disinformation over the war in Ukraine. Photograph: Brian Lawless/PA

A global coalition of democracies is being formed to protect their societies from disinformation campaigns by foreign governments, the US special envoy on the issue has said.

James Rubin, the special envoy for non-state propaganda and disinformation efforts at the US state department’s global engagement centre (GEC), said the coalition hoped to agree on “definitions for information manipulation versus plain old opinions that other governments are entitled to have even if we disagree with them”.