US directs embassies to team up against foreign 'hostility' - and use X to 'counter anti-American propaganda'

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: The Guardian

Mon 30 Mar 2026 17.52 EDT
Last modified on Tue 31 Mar 2026 09.35 EDT


The United States has directed every American embassy and consulate across the world to launch coordinated campaigns against foreign propaganda and endorses Elon Musk’s X as an “innovative” tool to help do it.

The cable, signed by the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, on Monday and obtained by the Guardian, also suggests embassies and consulates work alongside the US military’s psychological operations unit to address the problem of rampant disinformation. It lays out a sweeping set of instructions for how embassy staff should push back against what it describes as coordinated foreign efforts to undermine American interests abroad.

It comes as the United States is at war with Iran, whose government has for decades operated one of the world’s most sophisticated and prolific state disinformation apparatuses, and as Russian and Chinese influence operations continue to target American allies across Europe, Asia and Latin America.

The cable instructs those embassies and consulates to pursue five broad goals: countering hostile messaging, expanding access to information, exposing adversary behavior, elevating local voices who support American interests, and promoting what it calls “telling America’s story”. Embassies are told to recruit local influencers, academics and community leaders abroad to carry counter-propaganda messaging, an approach designed to make American-funded narratives feel locally organic rather than centrally directed.

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/mar/30/embassies-campaign-marco-rubio-elon-musk

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I expect the seasoned diplomats (at least any who are still left) are going to ignore this.

[RockRaven]

1. Because where America's foreign policy has gone awry is a lack of posting.

[pandr32]

2. To your comment--I sure hope so!

[underpants]

3. Don't forget to conquer actual information while you're at it

There’s a video on Twitter of a No Kings rally in Chicago (with foreign flags included no less) being sold as a PRO TRUMP rally the press won’t talk about. Rep. Tim daggum Burtchet even reposted it.

[Prairie Gates]

4. People are still on the Platform formerly known as Twitter?

[BumRushDaShow]

5. That's because many had joined and established followers and follows

starting back in the early days of the app in the mid-late 2000s, notably many governmental entities at the municipal/county/state/federal levels, who used it to quickly disseminate info as it might take time to get a reporter from a TV or radio station to get the info out right away (and they still use it for that).

Muskrat has only owned it since 2022 and as long as this type of social media space is still fractured between Threads, Bluesky, and Mastodon (remember them?), Xitter will still be dominant.

[Hey Joe]

6. This very misadministration is doing most of the

Undermining of itself. It’s not the international communities who shot us in both feet.
We, as in our countries leaders, is who is responsible for our situation!

[Talitha]

7. I wish they hadn't said "The United States has directed"

WE are the United States, and we do NOT approve their directive.