The Biden administration has revoked more of former President Donald Trump’s executive orders, including the “Preventing Online Censorship” and “Protecting American Monuments” orders from last May and July.
The administration also revoked the Building and Rebuilding Monuments to American Heroes, Rebranding United States Foreign Assistance To Advance American Influence, Building the National Garden of American HeroesBuilding the National Garden of American Heroes, and Protecting Americans From Overcriminalization Through Regulatory Reform executive orders.
The administration announced the revocations in a statement:
“The following Presidential actions are revoked: Executive Order 13925 of May 28, 2020 (Preventing Online Censorship), Executive Order 13933 of June 26, 2020 (Protecting American Monuments, Memorials, and Statues and Combating Recent Criminal Violence), Executive Order 13934 of July 3, 2020 (Building and Rebuilding Monuments to American Heroes), Executive Order 13964 of December 10, 2020 (Rebranding United States Foreign Assistance To Advance American Influence), Executive Order 13978 of January 18, 2021 (Building the National Garden of American Heroes), and Executive Order 13980 of January 18, 2021 (Protecting Americans From Overcriminalization Through Regulatory Reform).”
Trump’s order about preventing online censorship stated that “free speech is the bedrock of American democracy. Our Founding Fathers protected this sacred right with the First Amendment to the Constitution. The freedom to express and debate ideas is the foundation for all of our rights as a free people.”
The order directed the Commerce Department to file a petition with the Federal Communications Commission to craft new regulations limiting the scope of protections provided to tech companies under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. Under the current Section 230 rules, online platforms are not liable for content their users post because they are considered platforms, not publishers. It also ordered the attorney general to develop a proposal for federal legislation to promote the order’s policy goals.
The Protecting American Monuments order reinforced that it “is the policy of the United States to prosecute to the fullest extent permitted under Federal law, and as appropriate, any person or any entity that destroys, damages, vandalizes, or desecrates a monument, memorial, or statue within the United States or otherwise vandalizes government property.” It also limited federal grants for jurisdictions and law enforcement agencies that permit the desecration of monuments, memorials or statues.
The Biden order states that any personnel positions, committees, task forces, or other entities established pursuant to the Presidential actions identified in this order shall be abolished, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law.
