According to the bureau's page on the Department of State website, IIP "provides and supports the places, content, and infrastructure needed for sustained conversations with foreign audiences to build America's reputation abroad".[5]
Physical and virtual places include over 700 American Spaces around the world,[6] as well as a large social media community that numbers over 12 million followers. Content includes publications, video, and U.S. expert speakers, who engage foreign audiences both in person and through virtual programs. An example of this is the Arabic-language Twitter channel @USAbilAraby. IIP managed the infrastructure for all embassy and consulate websites, translations of public remarks by the President and Secretary, and maintains internal websites with resources for use by public diplomacy officers for overseas programs.
The Bureau of International Information Programs provided public diplomacy materials and support in three primary areas:
Digital
IIP operates the department's embassy and consulate websites (http://usembassy.gov) in over 60 languages. IIP also supports embassy social media efforts with Facebook pages and Twitter sites in six languages.
IIP also operates an interactive web-chat platform that links foreign audiences to U.S. subject matter experts, opinion-makers, community leaders, and government officials in more than 800 programs each year. In September 2014, the bureau launched a new social sharing platform ShareAmerica to distribute public diplomacy content.
American Spaces exemplify the United States commitment to a core tenet of democracy: the citizen's right to free access to information. Hosting more than 16 million visits each year, American Spaces supports public diplomacy by creating a place for in-person engagement with foreign audiences. Over 700 Spaces are hosted in embassies, schools, libraries, and other partner institutions in 169 countries. They provide information about United States' policy, culture, and values as well as study in the United States. They also support English language learning and activities for alumni of international visitor programs.
Public Diplomacy (PD) Content
IIP creates and curates content that provides context and information on U.S. foreign policy topics in a variety of formats ranging from video to print publications to audiobooks, reaching more than one billion people a year. Much of this content, along with transcripts of the Secretary's and President's speeches, is available to embassies in multiple languages. IIP also produces more than 125 video products each year and recruits more than 650 speakers annually, including Supreme Court justices, renowned authors, innovators, scholars, entrepreneurs, journalists, and sports figures who connect directly with more than 160,000 people in local markets via in-country and virtual events.
Analytics
IIP has an advanced analytics capacity to measure output, campaign performance, perform audience analysis and track over 2,000 Department of State social media properties.
Todd Leventhal, Chief of the Misinformation Team, U.S. Department of State and Dante Chinni, Senior Associate, Project for Excellence in Journalism at Washington Foreign Press Center Briefing on "Accuracy in the Media: Misinformation, Mistakes, and Misleading in American and Other Media."
The Counter Misinformation Team or Counter Mis-information Team (CMT), headed by Todd Leventhal, was part of the Bureau of International Information Programs. CMT was originally formed to counter Soviet misinformation during the Cold War.[8] and was tasked with responding to alleged misinformation and disinformation about the United States government. It was discontinued at the end of the Bush administration.
In an attempt to debunk 9/11 conspiracy theories, CMT released "The Top September 11 Conspiracy Theories"[9] report on August 28, 2006.[10]
