Former President Donald Trump is pledging to ban the federal government from “colluding with any organization” to “impede the lawful speech of American citizens” should he retake the White House in 2024.
Casting himself as a supporter of free speech, Trump torched recent revelations from the “Twitter Files” that top executives at the company attended meetings with law enforcement officials, and he laid out a litany of executive actions as well as congressional legislation he wants pursue to obliterate the “censorship regime.”
TRUMP REVEALS ‘MAJOR ANNOUNCEMENT’: DIGITAL TRADING CARDS WORTH $99
“We just don’t have a free country. It’s as simple as that. If this most fundamental right is allowed to perish, then the rest of our rights and liberties will topple,” Trump warned. “When I am president this whole rotten system of censorship and information control will be ripped out of the system at large. There won’t be anything left. By restoring free speech we will begin to reclaim our democracy and save our nation.”
Trump’s misinformation announcement was overshadowed Thursday by the debut of the Donald Trump Digital Trading Card collection, in which fans can dole out $99 for a digital card bearing his likeness. Trump had foreshadowed a “MAJOR ANNOUNCEMENT” on Wednesday, only for the trading card stunt to prompt much mockery online.
The card trick and the misinformation policy announcement both come as polls indicate he is hemorrhaging support among Republicans who now view Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis as the favorite presidential candidate in 2024.
In the video address uploaded to his microblogging platform Truth Social, which was created after his suspension from Twitter in the aftermath of the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, Trump laid out a five-point plan to dismantle and destroy the “censorship cartel.”
First, he plans to sign an executive order prohibiting government collusion for purposes of censorship. That includes “firing every federal bureaucrat who has engaged in domestic censorship directly or indirectly.”
“I will then ban federal money from being used to label domestic speech as mis- or disinformation,” Trump further explained.
Second, he will order a Justice Department investigation of the “new online censorship regime.” Third, he will ask Congress for a bill reforming Section 230, a policy that provides online platforms broad liability protections, to ensure tech companies only get immunity protection if “they meet high standards of neutrality, transparency, fairness and non discrimination.”
He also plans to have the federal government cut funding for nonprofit groups and academic programs that back censorship by engaging in actions such as flagging social media content for removal or blacklisting. During the run-up to the 2020 election, Twitter blacklisted a New York Post story about Hunter Biden’s laptop. Executives later claimed that warnings from law enforcement about a Russian disinformation dump preceded that throttling.
Lastly, Trump said he plans to prod Congress to enact a digital “Bill of Rights” ensuring a right to digital due process, among other guarantees.
Since billionaire mogul Elon Musk’s $44 billion Twitter takeover became official in October, the tech guru has opened the company up to journalists Matt Taibbi and Bari Weiss and author Michael Shellenberger to release the “Twitter Files,” highlighting internal Twitter deliberations about content moderation, Trump, the New York Post’s October 2020 Hunter Biden story, and more.
Among the many revelations was internal documentation indicating that Twitter’s former head of safety, Yoel Roth, met with FBI officials nearly weekly during the run-up to the 2020 election. Details of those meetings were not clear.
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Musk also restored Trump’s Twitter account shortly after taking over the company, but Trump has yet to return to his once-go-to platform. Trump has struggled to gain any momentum since announcing a third presidential bid shortly after Republicans underwhelmed in the midterm elections.
