(WASHINGTON)– PEN America, the free expression and writers’ organization, issued the following comments in response to President Trump’s executive orders, including one titled “Restoring Freedom of Speech.”
Hadar Harris, Washington managing director of PEN America, said: “Let’s not be naive. While some of President Trump’s flurry of executive orders pay lip service to free speech, in reality they frame a frontal assault against it, dictating the terms of allowable expression and identities, demanding political loyalty from civil servants, and threatening retaliation against dissent in ways that could cast a broad chill on free expression well beyond the halls of government. If the U.S. Government erases language about gender or equity from grants, contracts, statements, or policies, those words will disappear from many other spaces as well.
In this light, the administration’s executive order on ‘freedom of speech’ and ‘ending federal censorship’ ring hollow. We agree with the statement that ‘Government censorship of speech is intolerable in a free society,’ but the official suppression of ideas is already forbidden by the First Amendment. No executive action was needed to guarantee that right.
We also believe that the government must take care in how it tackles the challenge of disinformation so as not to infringe on free speech. Government speech cannot cross the line to become pressure or threats, veiled or otherwise, that censor the
speech of private social media platforms and their users.
At the same time, public officials can permissibly engage with private social media companies on matters of public interest. The government should be able to communicate and engage in information sharing with tech companies when disinformation is swirling online during a natural disaster, pandemic, foreign interference in an election, or other moments of heightened tension and risks to the public. This EO would not only make that coordination impossible, it could limit the government’s ability to address disinformation at all, potentially constraining not just communication with companies but coordination with other governments, and the funding or conduct of research on disinformation. In other words, this EO is not about restoring free speech, it’s about giving disinformation free rein.”
About PEN America
PEN America stands at the intersection of literature and human rights to protect free expression in the United States and worldwide. We champion the freedom to write, recognizing the power of the word to transform the world. Our mission is to unite writers and their allies to celebrate creative expression and defend the liberties that make it possible. Learn more at pen.org.
Contact: Suzanne Trimel, [email protected], (201) 247-5057