Authored by Ben Weingarten via RealClearInvestigations,
Flanked by some of the Big Tech executives whose companies had suppressed the views of his supporters throughout his predecessor’s term, President Trump on Jan. 20 declared the days of such speech policing over.
Hours later, the president put action behind his words, signing an executive order prohibiting the federal government from engaging in, facilitating, or funding “any conduct that would unconstitutionally abridge the free speech of any American citizen.”
The move was celebrated by those who see it as a blow against what they decry as the Censorship Industrial Complex. Others cast the executive order as giving dangerous license to “misinformation” and “disinformation.”
What is clear is that this is just the latest salvo in an ongoing war over the digital public square, pitting the Trump administration and like-minded Republican congressional allies against not only domestic opponents but the global counter-disinformation eco-system.