Former President Donald Trump announced Thursday that he will bar the federal government from using terms such as “misinformation” and “disinformation” to describe domestic speech if he’s reelected.
In a video released by the New York Post, Trump said that if he’s named the winner in 2024, one of his first executive acts will target federal rules around speech. The advertisement-like clip showed Trump making his announcement in front of two American flags.
“Within hours of my inauguration, I will sign an executive order banning any federal department or agency from colluding with any organization, business, or person, to censor, limit, categorize, or impede the lawful speech of American citizens,” Trump said.
“I will then ban federal money from being used to label domestic speech as ‘mis-‘ or ‘dis-information’. And I will begin the process of identifying and firing every federal bureaucrat who has engaged in domestic censorship—directly or indirectly—whether they are the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Health and Human Services, the FBI, the DOJ, no matter who they are,” he added.
Since last week, several journalists have published installments of the “Twitter Files,” promoted by new Twitter owner Elon Musk, that revealed how Trump’s account was suspended in early 2021 as well as how officials and campaigns communicated with Twitter executives through back channels.
The 45th president also proposed a “Digital Bill of Rights” that “should include a right to digital due process—in other words, government officials should need a court order to take down online content, not send information requests such as the FBI was sending to Twitter.”
“In addition, all users over the age of 18 should have the right to opt-out of content moderation and curation entirely, and receive an unmanipulated stream of information if they so choose,” Trump said.
After taking office in 2021, President Joe Biden has called on news outlets and social media firms to tackle what he said is misinformation around COVID-19 and vaccines.
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