Shortly after his second inauguration, Donald Trump signed an executive order aimed at “restoring freedom of speech and ending federal censorship.”
Under the order, all government agencies, employees, and agents are barred from using any federal resource to “abridge the free speech of any American citizen.” The order also accuses the Biden administration of using the pretense of “misinformation” and “disinformation” to infringe on free speech rights.
“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,” the order claims.
Trump signs an executive order at the Capital One Arena on Jan. 20. (Credit: Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
Trump’s executive order instructs the Attorney General, along with the heads of executive departments and agencies, to investigate the previous administration’s activities related to the censorship of free speech and provide “recommendations for appropriate remedial actions.”
At issue are government efforts to point out potentially harmful misinformation on social media platforms, particularly around COVID-19. In 2023, a judge banned dozens of federal officials across four cabinet departments and agencies from talking to these platforms about their content, ruling that it was a First Amendment violation.
A year later, the Supreme Court overturned that, ruling that the feds can notify social media platforms about posts they believe violate the sites’ policies and suggest they be removed. However, the Supreme Court said it wouldn’t rise to the level of a First Amendment violation unless the government used “do this or else” coercion.
In August, Mark Zuckerberg said the Biden administration pressured Meta to “censor” user posts about the COVID-19 pandemic, though he acknowledged that “it was our decision whether or not to take content down.” During a recent appearance on Joe Rogan’s podcast, meanwhile, Zuckerberg also claimed that Biden officials screamed and cursed at Meta employees while demanding the takedown of posts that doubted the COVID-19 vaccine’s effectiveness.Â
“While they’re trying to push that program, they also tried to censor anyone who was basically arguing against it,” Zuckerberg told Rogan. “And they pushed us super hard to take down things that honestly were true.”
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Zuckerberg (along with Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Apple CEO Tim Cook, and X owner Elon Musk) attended Trump’s inauguration yesterday. The executives all donated $1 million to the inaugural, either personally or through their companies.
Meta recently announced that it’s adopting user-driven “Community Notes” as an alternative to fact-checkers. A similar feature on X inspired the move.
Trump’s executive order doesn’t address the rise of misinformation and AI-generated deepfakes on social media platforms.
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About Jibin Joseph
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