Trump ends government censorship era
President Donald Trump on Monday ended the unprecedented censorship regime imposed by the Biden administration.
An ‘Orwellian Ministry of Truth’
The federal government under Joe Biden worked aggressively with social media platforms, universities, and NGOs like the Atlantic Council to censor Americans on a range of topics including COVID-19 and elections. The Global Engagement Center, an office within the State Department that closed late last month, coordinated the mass suppression of content with those parties.
The government’s censorship became so pervasive that one federal judge referred to the Biden administration as an “Orwellian ‘Ministry of Truth’” responsible for “the most massive attack against free speech in United States’ history.”
“[T]he Government has used its power to silence the opposition,” wrote US District Judge Terry Doughty in a July 4, 2023 ruling. “Opposition to COVID-19 vaccines; opposition to COVID-19 masking and lockdowns; opposition to the lab-leak theory of COVID-19; opposition to the validity of the 2020 election; opposition to President Biden’s policies; statements that the Hunter Biden laptop story was true; and opposition to policies of the government officials in power. All were suppressed. It is quite telling that each example or category of suppressed speech was conservative in nature. This targeted suppression of conservative ideas is a perfect example of viewpoint discrimination of political speech.”
In a court filing, the Department of Justice acknowledged that the FBI had a 50% success rate in having disfavored viewpoints suppressed on social media.
Trump bans ‘intolerable’ government censorship
Immediately after his inauguration on Monday, Trump signed an executive order titled “Restoring Freedom of Speech and Ending Federal Censorship” forbidding any federal employee or agency from taking any action that infringes on free speech.
“Over the last 4 years, the previous administration trampled free speech rights by censoring Americans’ speech on online platforms, often by exerting substantial coercive pressure on third parties, such as social media companies, to moderate, deplatform, or otherwise suppress speech that the Federal Government did not approve,” read the EO. “Under the guise of combatting ‘misinformation,’ ‘disinformation,’ and ‘malinformation,’ the Federal Government infringed on the constitutionally protected speech rights of American citizens across the United States in a manner that advanced the Government’s preferred narrative about significant matters of public debate. Government censorship of speech is intolerable in a free society.”
The EO also ordered the attorney general to investigate actions taken by the Biden administration that abridged free speech.
