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By Mandy Taheri
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The State Department is requiring all of its accounts to delete public X posts made before President Donald Trump returned to office last year by the end of the month in an effort to “speak clearly and with one voice,” a department spokesperson told Newsweek on Saturday morning.
Why It Matters
The administration has repeatedly described itself as the “most transparent" in U.S. history even as federal agencies have removed or revised some information on government websites, including pages tied to diversity, the environment, and other topics the administration has targeted. Earlier this week, the CIA sunset its global reference manual, The World Factbook, which had been digital since 1997. The administration has faced criticism over delays and transparency in releasing the Jeffrey Epstein files and the extent of redactions in documents made public.
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The White House has also published pages that present an alternative account of the January 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol riot and replaced the government’s previous COVID-19 sites with a page titled “Lab Leak: The True Origins of COVID-19.” Trump has also sought to put his name on institutions and initiatives, including the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
The State Department X account transitions from one administration to the next.
The Trump administration has reiterated its "America First" platform, however, this term has been filled with foreign policy action through the State Department, including negotiations with Ukraine, Russia, Iran, Israel, and Hamas, as well as the capture of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro.
What To Know
“The Department’s official X accounts are one of our most powerful tools for advancing the America First goals and messaging of the President, Secretary, and Administration, both to our fellow Americans and audiences around the world,” a spokesperson for the State Department told Newsweek in a Saturday email.
The department has a main account, @StateDept, which has over 6.6 million followers, as well as many embassies and consulates. Archived content shows the State Department had at least 300 feeds across 11 languages between 2009 and 2017.
The State Department said the change is so the agency can “speak clearly and with one voice.” The posts will be removed from public view and archived.
"All archived content will be preserved in alignment with Federal Record Act requirements and Department policies," the spokesperson said. “The goal of this process is to limit confusion on U.S government policy and to speak with one voice to advance the President, Secretary, and Administration’s goals and messaging. It will preserve history while promoting the present.”
The spokesperson did not confirm whether posts from the president’s first term would also be deleted, though the timeline suggests they would be, and didn’t address if the policy pertains to other social media platforms.
In an unrelated instance, Trump posted an offensive artificial intelligence (AI)-generated video on Friday that depicted former President Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama as apes, which was deleted from his Truth Social account hours later after bipartisan backlash. The president has not offered an apology on the video but said a White House staffer had inadvertently placed the short snippet of the ape clip in a video that was about voter fraud.
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What People Are Saying
Orna Blum, a former State Department diplomat for decades, wrote in a LinkedIn post about the change: "These posts to be removed are not just press statements. They include our embassies' July 4 livestreams, photos of COVID vaccine donations to other nations, holiday greetings, condolences, cultural programming, and the day-to-day record of diplomacy. They show who the U.S. engaged with, when, and how—often the only public record of those moments.
Once removed, there will be no easy public, searchable access to this history. FOIA is slow, discretionary, and often redacted. It’s a backstop—not a substitute for open archives. Worth noting: the U.S. government routinely preserves archived websites of past administrations, effective each Inauguration Day. They can easily be found online. The same could be done here through a read-only public archive. Choosing not to create a similar method is a policy choice.”
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt responded to the president’s ape video early Friday in a statement shared with Newsweek for another article: "This is from an internet meme video depicting President Trump as the King of the Jungle and Democrats as characters from the Lion King. Please stop the fake outrage and report on something today that actually matters to the American public."
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, NAACP, wrote on X Friday: "Trump posting this video—especially during Black History Month—is a stark reminder of how Trump and his followers truly view people. And we’ll remember that in November."
What Happens Next
The various State Department accounts will have until February 20 to delete all of their posts made prior to January 20, 2025, per the policy.
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