(President Donald Trump on Monday signed an executive order banning the federal government from taking any action to restrict Americans free speech rights.
Although such a prohibition is already enshrined in the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, that did not stop the Biden administration from attempting to circumvent the law by using private organizations as the intermediary.
Trump’s order broaden’s the protections not only to direct censorship but to actions that might also encourage or promote other forms of censorship.
The order ensures “that no Federal Government officer, employee, or agent engages in or facilitates any conduct that would unconstitutionally abridge the free speech of any American citizen.”
It also ensures “that no taxpayer resources are used to engage in or facilitate any conduct that would unconstitutionally abridge the free speech of any American citizen” and “identify and take appropriate action to correct past misconduct by the Federal Government related to censorship of protected speech.”
The latter half address the Biden and Obama administration’s redirection of grants to non-governmental organizations that would effectively do their bidding but without the constraints of the public sector.
For example, the State Department funneled funding to the Global Engagement Center, an organization with a $100 million operating budget that was tasked with targeting conservative information sources and flagging them as unreliable, which would then lead tech companies to downgrade their appearances in searches and social-media algorithms.
Meta earlier this month ended its practice of censoring posts on Facebook, Instagram and Threads after CEO Mark Zuckerberg admitted that the Biden administration pressured the company to remove posts related to COVID-19, the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections—including suppressing the New York Post’s explosive story on Hunter Biden’s laptop—and other matters.
“We started building social media to give people a voice,” Zuckerberg said in announcing the decision. “What started as a movement to be more inclusive has increasingly been used to shut down opinions and shut out people with different ideas, and it’s gone too far.”
Twitter, now X, also removed posts under pressure from the Biden administration before Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk bought the social media platform in 2022.
Trump’s executive order also instructs the U.S. attorney general to investigate past cases of government censorship.
“The Attorney General, in consultation with the heads of executive departments and agencies, shall investigate the activities of the Federal Government over the last 4 years that are inconsistent with the purposes and policies of this order and prepare a report to be submitted to the President, through the Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy, with recommendations for appropriate remedial actions to be taken based on the findings of the report,” the order states.
Dan McCaleb is the executive editor of The Center Square. He welcomes your comments. Contact Dan at [email protected].
Headline USA’s Ben Sellers contributed to this report.
