President-elect Donald Trump sets the tone on domestic censorship
- hh7003
- Apr 26, 2025
- 4 min read
Owen Armentrout
Dec. 8, 2024
WASHINGTON-On Nov. 9, President-elect Donald Trump and his team uploaded a six-minute speech to social media outlining the incoming administration’s plan to dismantle what Trump said is the “left wing censorship regime.”
The address included proposed policies and revisions regarding domestic speech, accusations of suppression followed by threats of prosecution, the cessation of government funding for certain institutions and the establishment of a Digital Bill of Rights.
Subsequently, on Nov. 17, Trump appointed Commissioner Brendan Carr as Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission.
Carr served on the board of commissioners for the FCC since Trump nominated him in 2017 and reappointed him in 2020.
Carr gained notoriety for his authorship of Project 2025’s chapter on FCC policy and regulation. Project 2025 is a conservative guidebook for presidential transition.
Throughout his campaign, Trump made attempts to distance himself from Project 2025, publicly disavowing any association.
However, winning the election Trump has appointed a number of its composers to head positions in his administration.
Much of the rhetoric in Trump’s speech highlights, revises and expands upon the plot points represented in Carr’s writing. Although, it’s important to note the speech does not reflect all of Carr’s ideas, and none of the verbiage used in Trump’s address is pulled verbatim.
So where does this administration and Project 2025 intersect, and which concepts were purebred? The overlap lies within Carr’s segment on “reigning in big tech,” specifically homing in on reforms and enforcement of Section 230, a section of the Communications Decency Act.
Section 230 was enacted in 1996 as a way of providing federal immunity to online platforms and providers. Essentially, it incentivizes platforms to remove harmful content and ensures they aren’t held liable for content uploaded by users.
To start, both Trump and Carr have advocated for social media platforms to be more transparent with regulatory practices.
In his speech, Trump advocated to obligate platforms to notify users of account actions like suspension, termination, shadow banning or post removal, providing detailed reasons and a timely appeal process.
Project 2025 pinpointed strategies, calling for social media platforms to be handled in the same manner as broadband providers, entertaining the notion that the process be facilitated by authority gained through Section 230.
Furthermore, the pair have expressed plans to alter Section 230. Carr wrote in Project 2025 that the government should institute anti-discrimination provisions into the law to ensure that platforms will be stripped of the protections provided by the statute if they are identified to have censored protected speech.
“Digital platforms should only qualify for immunity protection under Section 230 if they meet high standards of neutrality, transparency, fairness and non-discrimination.” Trump said.
So, what did the President-elect say that was independent of Project 2025?
Trump stated that on Inauguration Day he would sign an executive order to ban any government department or agency from colluding with outside entities to censor or categorize domestic speech.
In addition, he pledged to ban federal funds from being used to label misinformation and disinformation. Universities identified to have censored information or engaged in election interference would also lose federal research and student loan funding for a minimum of five years.
Several academic institutions have been accused of political censorship in recent years; while many of the allegations have remained as such, in 2021 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Uzuegbunam v. Preczewski that Georgia Gwinnett College’s policies regarding free speech were unconstitutional.
Furthermore, Trump said he would, “order the Department of Justice to investigate all parties involved in the new online censorship regime” and those identified would be prosecuted aggressively.
Lastly, he proposed a digital Bill of Rights. Effectively giving citizens the right to digital due process, while aiming to replace the FBI’s information requests by requiring that government officials have a court order to remove content.
Essentially, Trump has put free speech under the microscope, leaving some journalists and scholars concerned.
Francis Donnelly is a senior writer for The Detroit News.
“Trump’s first concern of course is himself, and so I would figure that what he’s really worried about is having these agencies divulge damaging things about Donald Trump, so he’s going to try to nip that in the bud.” said Donnelly.
“He doesn’t want, especially the FBI any type of federal law enforcement agency to be talking to the media about Trump’s misdeeds.”
Although, Donnelly isn’t worried about the implications concerning journalism. According to him, while Trump will do everything in his power to restrict negative press, and perhaps even succeed on a small scale, he believes that overall, media correspondence will remain relatively unaffected.
Freedom of speech is a neutral entity, manipulatable in nature. When power shifts hands, one begins to wonder whether it will be used to benefit the multitude or to suppress vital information.
Detailing the academic viewpoint is Brad Roth, a professor of political science at Wayne State University.
“It seems to me that, you know, again once people have power, their interest in free speech is quite qualified,” said Roth.
“And what they really want to do at this point is to suppress other kinds of views that are threatening to interests that they care about. And so much of what you’re going to be seeing is efforts to crack down on diversity, equity and inclusion programs of both within higher education and perhaps also within the private sector.”
According to Roth, the threat is primarily directed at social science, humanities, and arts programs. He believes these studies are ingrained in the notion that understanding political morality can only happen through overcoming the scope of your own lens, and that conservative views are often bred out of sheltering; masquerading as common sense.
These intellectuals are worried the Trump administration will abuse its power under the guise of protecting free speech; producing counterproductive legislation allowing Trump to repress criticism that he deems damnable.
Only time will tell.
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