In one of his first acts after taking office, President Trump issued the following statement: presidential order He promised to end government censorship and restore freedom of speech.

The order accuses the outgoing Biden administration of harassing social media companies and violating the rights of average Americans “in the name of combating online disinformation” and dedicates federal resources to ” “It will no longer be used to unconstitutionally infringe on the free speech rights of the American people.” ”

The order reflects the Trump campaign’s recurring theme that liberals across the federal government are censoring conservative voices in order to advance their own “woke” agenda, and quickly became a rallying cry for Trump supporters. It resonated with me.

Mark Trammell of the American Freedom Center, a conservative rights group founded by President Trump’s California lawyer Harmeet K. “This is an important step to ensure that private organizations cannot be used as weapons to enforce censorship.” He was named head of the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division.

But many others said they found President Trump’s order ridiculous. That’s because of President Trump’s long track record of attacking speech he doesn’t like, and the new administration’s parallel efforts to muzzle those with whom it disagrees, including journalists, federal health officials and teachers. be. , diplomatclimate scientists, and the LGBTQ+ community.

“Let’s not be naive,” said Hadar Harris, Washington executive director of PEN America, which has advocated for free speech in the United States for more than a century. “Some of President Trump’s executive orders pay lip service to free speech, but in reality they orchestrate a full-on attack on free speech, defining the conditions of acceptable expression and identity. “It demands political allegiance from public officials and threatens some kind of reprisal for dissent.”It could have widespread chilling effects on freedom of expression far beyond government. ”

California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta attacks the media while claiming President Trump is a champion of free speech, severely restricting long-time public officials’ ability to communicate with the public, including in critical areas such as public health. He said it was “cynical and hypocritical”.

“This is a typical Trump administration,” Bonta said. “It’s their rhetoric and their actions, and you have to look at their actions.”

restrict communication

The Trump administration has ordered federal employees and diplomats at home and abroad to stop communicating on a variety of issues, including “diversity, equity, and inclusion,” “environmental justice,” and “gender ideology.”

It orders Pentagon officials to stop posting information on official social media accounts unless it pertains to the southern border, and it orders health and other federal experts to respond to important public information, such as the spread of avian influenza. He also ordered restrictions on communication regarding safety issues. A state of emergency was declared.

Dr. Jeffrey Klausner, a public health professor and infectious disease expert at the University of Southern California, said he was alarmed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s withdrawal Thursday from a planned avian influenza discussion with the Infectious Diseases Society of America. He said he felt it. Klausner said their withdrawal is a “huge loss to our ability to understand what’s going on” nationally.

Klausner said previous administrations have issued new orders to health leaders, cutting spending and changing priorities, but no orders have halted so many critical communications at once. He said he had never released it. He called it “very alarming.”

President Trump also ordered a sweeping crackdown on federal communications regarding the LGBTQ+ community. Removing LGBTQ+ resource materials from government websites, imposing new restrictions on how federal employees can discuss and speak to LGBTQ+ people, and even using words like “sex” and “gender” He also ordered them to do something. ”

He threatened to impose similar restrictions on public school teachers and administrators, ordering that LGBTQ+ Americans no longer be able to identify themselves as transgender on their passports or other documents.

Jenny Piser, chief legal officer at Lambda Legal, an LGBTQ+ legal advocacy group, said Trump’s order is “the antithesis of free speech” and an attempt by the government to “silence people and chill speech.” He said it was a clear attempt and that it was illegal.

She pointed to new rules that prohibit federal employees, contractors and materials from referring to gender identity or fluidity. “Those concepts are being censored, and so is the language used to express those concepts,” she said.

Lambda Legal has fought such efforts before. In 2020, when President Trump issued an executive order banning federal grant recipients who conduct workplace diversity training from discussing topics such as implicit bias and critical race theory, Calling it a “divisive concept,” Lambda Legal and others filed a lawsuit and won an injunction to block the order.

President Trump has also continued to criticize news organizations, calling journalists “enemies of the people.” He is suing various media organizations, including the Pulitzer Prize and the Des Moines Register’s board of directors and its parent company, Gannett, alleging that the journalism was defamatory or unfair. News organizations defended their work.

Katherine Jacobsen, U.S. program coordinator for the Committee to Protect Journalists, said journalists would welcome sincere efforts to strengthen free speech protections across the political spectrum, but President Trump’s order does not. said.

“what we have seen “In this post-election period, and even before the election began in the last presidential term, he has not been an active supporter of free speech that is contrary to what he stands for,” Jacobsen said. .

online discussion

At the heart of President Trump’s censorship order is his assertion that the Biden administration has “trampled Americans’ right to free speech by censoring their speech” by “exercising significant coercive pressure” on online platforms. be.

It’s not a new argument.

Social media companies suspend thousands of accounts following multiple investigations into the January 6, 2021 attacks and efforts by foreign adversaries to spread disinformation and sow distrust in America’s political system He promised to crack down on the situation. Under the Biden administration, authorities have continued to pressure these platforms to remove posts the administration deems false and dangerous, including about the integrity of U.S. elections as well as the coronavirus pandemic. Ta.

These efforts increasingly worried Republicans, and eventually led to lawsuits from Republican states accusing the Biden administration of illegally forcing platforms to remove conservative content.

Experts say claims of liberal bias on social platforms are generally exaggerated, citing the thriving conservative communities online as evidence of this. However, research shows that many conservatives believe that bias exists. And Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently spoke publicly about the pressure the company has received from the Biden administration to remove or limit the spread of certain content, including satirical content about the coronavirus. A complaint was filed with Congress, lending credence to the claim.

Lawyers for the Biden administration say there is a difference between legitimate persuasion and improper coercion, and that communication channels between the government and social media companies must remain open for public safety reasons. Ta. The Supreme Court ruled in June in favor of the Biden administration, ruling that the states lacked standing to sue. Litigation over this issue is still ongoing.

Meanwhile, technology industry leaders were shifting from moderates to Mr. Trump.

Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, bought social media platform X (then Twitter) in October 2022 with the promise of making it more free. He calls himself a “free speech absolutist” and says Twitter has not lived up to its potential as a “free speech platform” and said he wants to solve this problem by loosening content restrictions. Then he said.

Since then, Mr. Musk has joined Mr. Trump’s inner circle, spent more than $250 million to help Mr. Trump and congressional Republicans re-elect, and been appointed by Mr. Trump to head a new agency called the Department of Government Efficiency. They are appointed and promote all kinds of policies. There are few questions about disputes given the contracts Musk, who is also CEO of SpaceX and Tesla, has with the federal government.

Critics have also questioned Musk’s commitment to free speech. He kicked out journalists who were covering him from X and amplified conservative stories on the platform. In September, X revealed that it had suspended 1.6 million accounts in the first half of 2022, compared to nearly 5.3 million accounts in the first half of last year.

Earlier this month, Zuckerberg of Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, said his company had admitted to “excessive censorship” and removed fact-checkers, eased content restrictions and created more politics. announced that it would provide content.

Zuckerberg later appeared on the popular Joe Rogan podcast and said American companies had been “castrated” and “eviscerated” and said Biden administration officials called members of the meta team to remove certain content. “They complained bitterly that they were demanding that we do so, and threatened that there would be repercussions if we did not do so.”

In addition to Musk and Zuckerberg, many other technology leaders attended Trump’s inauguration, including Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and the CEOs of Apple, Google, and TikTok. We also received many donations for the event.

Trammell of the Center for American Freedom said the Biden administration is violating the rights of average Americans with these actions and that Trump’s order “reaffirms America’s commitment to free expression.” . Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), who has overseen investigations into social media bias as chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, specifically mentioned censorship orders in his post about ” he wrote. ”

PEN America’s Harris said the organization agrees that “government censorship of speech is unacceptable in a free society,” as stated in President Trump’s order, and that the government is not allowing disinformation on social media platforms. He said there was a need to be “careful” in how to deal with the situation. Don’t violate freedom of speech. ”

However, the government is not “committed to communicating with technology companies and sharing information during times of natural disasters, pandemics, foreign interference in elections, and other heightened tensions and risks to the public, and when disinformation swirls online.” We should be able to work on it,” Harris said. Said.

Harris defended speech already protected by the First Amendment, but said Trump’s order would make such necessary communications “impossible” and that “the government’s efforts to combat disinformation will be difficult.” “It would completely limit the ability of the public to use the Internet,” he said, “giving freedom for disinformation.”

raise your voice

Kate Oakley, senior director of legal policy at the LGBTQ+ Human Rights Campaign, said while there are some legitimate limits to free speech, you can’t shout “fire!” For example, in a crowded theater—the Constitution already protects Americans from government censorship, which President Trump is targeting with his executive order.

It also protects them from some of the things that would happen if President Trump’s other orders were carried out, she said.

“What he wants to do is reduce the expression of speech and beliefs that are critical of him and more speech and beliefs that praise him, so that people will say, He’s been doing things, believing things, reading things that aren’t true, and he wants to stop that, and he’s taking action to do that,” Oakley said.

But “our government can’t tell us things like that,” Oakley said, adding that organizations like hers need to speak up and have their voices heard, including in court if necessary. I’m going to make my point loud and clear.

California Attorney General Bonta says President Trump is a “skilled salesman” in his words and actions, but California will not be fooled and condemns Trump’s actions that violate free speech and threaten public safety. He said he would.

Lambda Legal’s Pizer said legal intervention by groups like hers won’t come soon because some of the orders are “still amorphous or theoretical and we don’t know what the impact will be.” He said it was possible. But they are watching closely and can already sense the pain, she said.

“The reality is that nice, wonderful people who have never done anything to hurt anyone are suffering along the way while we try to shut this down as quickly as possible,” she said. I did.

Times staff writer Tracy Wilkinson in Washington contributed to this report.