Washington Examiner, January 2025
Among a flurry of activity on his first day back in the Oval Office, President Donald Trump signed the Restoring Freedom of Speech and Ending Federal Censorship Executive Order. The executive order aims to “secure the right of the American people to engage in constitutionally protected speech” and “ensure 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.”
The executive order comes after years of complaints from Republican voters and politicians that conservative-leaning content online is discriminated against. The allegations of bias on the platforms drove much of the backlash against U.S. tech firms, which has reverberated through regulatory enforcement, political talking points, and the legislative agendas of both Congress and state houses across the country. But the so-called Twitter Files, the publishing of communications between government officials and content moderators on the social media platform, revealed that pressure from agencies such as the Department of Homeland Security and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention might have been more responsible for the controversial curating decisions than the political biases of “Big Tech.”
