Trump Admin Brags About Censoring App, Gets Immediately Sued

Free speech for me, but not for thee.

Photo Credit: Maxim Elramsisy via Shutterstock

If the past five years have taught us anything, it’s that conservatives hate censorship. There is nothing in the world that makes their blood boil harder than the government leaning on a private company to take down speech. From Hunter Biden’s laptop to covid misinformation, from election fraud conspiracies to blood libel about refugees eating pets, Republicans despise anything that infringes on our God-given right to express ourselves. And if the government participates in that censorship, FORGET ABOUT IT!

That’s why so many of Republican states supported the 2022 lawsuit filed by Missouri and Louisiana to enjoin the Biden administration from flagging misinformation on social media. The theory of that case was that the platforms became government agents when they removed posts at the the administration’s request — even if those posts violated the platforms’ own terms of service. Because government censorship is always wrong.

And so it is simply shocking that the Trump administration is openly bragging about having done the exact same thing this year.

I kid, of course. The only thing less shocking than Republicans’ reversal is Elon “Free Speech Absolutist” Musk’s abrupt about face after buying Twitter to preserve it as the world’s town square. But even so, MAGA world’s wholesale embrace of government censorship is something to behold.

One particular act of chutzpah is the DOJ’s now-successful effort to pressure Apple to remove the ICEBlock app from the Apple store on October 2. The app allowed users to anonymously report the presence of immigration agents at a particular location, sending out a push alert to anyone logged on within a five-mile radius. It was the creation of Texas man Joshua Aaron, who designed the free app as a form of protest. After CNN reported on ICEBlock, the app surpassed one million downloads, much to the Trump administration’s annoyance.