President Trump took immediate action to protect free speech on his first day in office, signing an executive order prohibiting federal interference in social media content after years of alleged government pressure on tech platforms during the Biden administration.
The order, signed shortly after his inauguration with Big Tech CEOs in attendance, aims to prevent federal employees from interfering with constitutionally protected speech and seeks to address what Mr. Trump called past misconduct in content moderation. The move represents a significant shift from the previous administration’s approach to social media oversight.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg had recently revealed that Biden administration officials would frequently contact his team with aggressive demands to remove content, particularly regarding COVID-19 protocols and vaccine information. Similar pressure was reportedly applied to other platforms including Amazon, Twitter and YouTube.
The executive order drew mixed reactions. Nina Jankowicz, former head of Biden’s disbanded disinformation governance board, criticized the move, arguing it could hamper efforts to combat disinformation. However, Allum Bokhari of the Foundation for Freedom Online praised the order as a crucial step in dismantling what he termed the “government censorship complex.”
The scope of previous administration’s content moderation efforts extended beyond COVID-19 discussions. Notably, the FBI’s involvement in suppressing the Hunter Biden laptop story came to light through Mr. Zuckerberg’s congressional testimony. The censorship infrastructure reportedly operated through various government agencies, including the State Department, Department of Homeland Security and the National Science Foundation.
In related developments, newly appointed Secretary of State Marco Rubio has already signaled alignment with Mr. Trump’s approach, announcing the permanent closure of the State Department’s Global Engagement Center and issuing directives against programs that could enable censorship of Americans.
These changes come in the wake of last year’s Supreme Court decision in Murthy v. Missouri, which revealed extensive communications between Biden administration officials and social media companies, including threats of legal consequences for noncompliance with content removal requests.
Meta has already begun implementing changes, with Mr. Zuckerberg announcing the replacement of their fact-checking system with a community-based approach similar to X’s “community notes” feature.
Read more: Trump’s free speech order dismantles ’government censorship complex’
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