Trump’s free speech order dismantles ‘government censorship complex’

President Trump clamped down on government interference in free speech by banning “federal censorship” after four years of Biden officials harassing social media companies to remove disfavored content.

Mr. Trump issued the executive order hours after Big Tech CEOs sat just a few feet away as he took the oath of office. Their social media platforms were subjected to cajoling and even threats by Biden officials to censor or remove content.

“In America, we believe in free speech, and we’re bringing it back starting today,” Mr. Trump said in a postinaugural speech Monday to supporters in the Capitol.

Mr. Trump’s order enshrines the right of the American people to engage in constitutionally protected speech and requires federal employees to steer clear of any conduct interfering with it.

The order also calls on the federal government to “correct past misconduct” related to censorship. This refers to the Biden administration’s heavy hand in controlling social media content, mainly regarding the COVID-19 pandemic, election integrity and Mr. Biden’s troubled son, Hunter Biden.

The executive order immediately drew criticism from Biden administration officials who helped clamp down on social media content during the past four years.

Nina Jankowicz, who headed the short-lived disinformation governance board, said Mr. Trump’s executive order will “chill critical speech about bad actors who use disinformation as a tool to destabilize our country and profit from lies.”

Others saw a triumph for free speech rights.

Allum Bokhari, managing director of the watchdog group Foundation for Freedom Online, said the order “is exactly what we all hoped for, and to see it on the first day is really, really encouraging.”

Mr. Bokhari said the language in the order “shows a deeper understanding of how the government censorship complex was created.”

The political left and the federal government homed in on social media speech during the 2016 presidential campaign, sparked by allegations of Russian disinformation online that was then blamed for helping Mr. Trump defeat Hillary Clinton.

Censorship ramped up and expanded dramatically during the Biden administration. That was when Mr. Biden’s top aides leaned on Facebook, Amazon, Twitter, YouTube and other platforms to remove, censor or diminish the visibility of content that questioned the government’s COVID-19 protocols, such as mask and vaccine mandates.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said on “The Joe Rogan Experience” this month that Mr. Biden’s aides “would call up our team and, like, scream at them and curse” about Facebook content they didn’t like and would demand its removal.

Biden staff also targeted Amazon, Twitter and YouTube.

Much of the censorship was aimed at posts that questioned, opposed or even joked about COVID-19 safety protocols and vaccines.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Mr. Trump’s nominee to lead the Health and Human Services Department, and Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman Rand Paul, Kentucky Republican, were among those whose content was removed from social media platforms.

The Biden administration’s censorship extended beyond COVID.

In an August letter to Congress, Mr. Zuckerberg exposed the FBI’s efforts to persuade social media platforms to suppress the story about the politically damning contents of Hunter Biden’s discarded laptop computer.

“While not always directly coercive, these communications effectively forced social media companies to censor more Americans’ speech or else face the wrath of a hostile administration,” said David Inserra, a fellow for free expression and technology at the Cato Institute.

Mr. Zuckerberg announced this month that Meta would terminate the platform’s fact-checking system and replace it with a system similar to the “community notes” feature on X that allows users to provide context or corrections.

Mr. Bokhari said the Trump executive order would require unwinding censorship initiatives funded by many government agencies and programs, including the State Department, Homeland Security Department and National Science Foundation. The foundation has provided the Trump administration with a list that tracks government censorship activities and funding.

One of the most active censorship programs, the State Department’s Global Engagement Center, tasked with identifying disinformation in foreign countries, was shuttered in late December.

Hours after his swearing-in ceremony on Tuesday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio signaled that the program would not be revived under his watch. He sent a cable to diplomats saying that programs that “lead or in any way open the door to censorship of the American people will be terminated.”

Last year, the Supreme Court upheld the executive branch’s right to communicate with technology companies about their content. The lawsuit, Murthy v. Missouri, exposed the many ways top Biden aides coerced and threatened social media platforms to censor content related to COVID-19 origins, vaccine safety and efficacy, and election integrity. Emails disclosed in the lawsuit revealed threats to change the law to expose social media platforms to lawsuits if they failed to remove specific content.

“A lot of these people would like to see a European-style, top-down government regulation of speech in the USA,” Mr. Bokhari said. “And that’s just not going to happen in a country with the First Amendment.”