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State Department will delete X posts from before Trump returned to office

WASHINGTON – The U.S. State Department is undertaking an unprecedented digital purge, confirming it will remove all public-facing posts from its official accounts on the social media platform X created before President Trump’s inauguration on January 20, 2025.

The move represents a significant departure from established norms for digital archiving and government transparency, effectively erasing years of public diplomatic history from easy view and placing it behind a formal bureaucratic process.

Why it matters: This directive impacts the real-time, searchable record of U.S. foreign policy and public diplomacy across three presidential administrations. For journalists, academics, foreign governments, and the public, it obscures the digital paper trail of American engagement on the world stage, from major policy announcements to day-to-day cultural outreach.

The action is being framed by the administration as a tool for message discipline, but critics warn it creates a significant barrier to accessing the historical record and is part of a broader pattern of information control across the federal government.

The Directive: A Digital Reset

The State Department confirmed to NPR that while the content will be internally archived in accordance with federal law, it will no longer be visible on the department's public X feeds.

• Scope of Removal: The order applies to all posts made before January 20, 2025, encompassing the entirety of the Biden and Obama administrations, as well as President Trump's first term.

• Affected Accounts: The directive is comprehensive, affecting all official departmental X accounts. This includes high-profile feeds for the Secretary of State, U.S. embassies and missions worldwide, individual ambassadors, and dozens of specialized bureaus and programs.

• Accessing the Archive: According to an internal source, any member of the public, including researchers and journalists, wishing to see the deleted posts will be required to file a formal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. This process can be lengthy, complex, and subject to redactions or denial.

• Unanswered Questions: The department did not clarify whether similar content purges are planned for other social media platforms like Facebook or Instagram, nor did it indicate if a more accessible public archive would be created outside of the FOIA process.

The Administration's Rationale

In a statement, a State Department spokesperson defended the move as a strategic communications decision designed to strengthen the administration's current messaging.

The stated goal 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."

The spokesperson emphasized that the department’s X accounts are viewed as "one of our most powerful tools for advancing the America First goals" and that the action "will preserve history while promoting the present."

A Broader Pattern of Information Control

This action at the State Department does not occur in isolation. It aligns with a series of similar moves across the government aimed at reshaping the public narrative and controlling access to official information.

• Website Content: The administration has systematically removed information from government websites that it deems ideologically contrary to its agenda, including data on climate change, public health, and diversity initiatives.

• Historical Narratives: Signs at national parks mentioning slavery have been taken down, and references to President Trump's impeachments have been removed from the National Portrait Gallery.

• Revising Key Events: The White House has launched a revisionist account of the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol and replaced the government’s primary COVID-19 resource website with a page focused on the "lab leak" theory.

• Key Data Takedown: In a parallel move this week, the CIA abruptly "sunset" its World Factbook. The widely used public intelligence resource, published since 1962, was taken offline with no detailed explanation, removing a globally recognized source of country data.

Concerns Over Transparency and the Historical Record

Current and former officials, alongside academic experts, have voiced significant alarm over the implications of the State Department's social media purge.

Shannon McGregor, a professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill who studies social media and politics, noted that while imperfect, these platforms have "created... some level of transparency." She warned that even if the posts are archived, placing them behind the FOIA process "puts up a greater barrier in terms of having access to that information."

The content being removed is not limited to dry policy statements. Orna Blum, a retired senior foreign service officer, highlighted the breadth of the digital record being obscured.

• Lost Diplomatic Record: Blum noted the deleted posts 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."

• Public Accountability: She emphasized that these posts often serve as "the only public record" of U.S. engagement with foreign counterparts, showing "who the U.S. engaged with, when, and how."

The Bottom Line

The decision to scrub the State Department's public digital history marks a pivotal moment in the tension between an administration's desire for message control and the principles of open government. By removing an easily searchable, real-time archive of U.S. diplomacy, the action risks undermining trust with allies and the American public by making the nation's recent foreign policy record opaque.

For global markets, diplomats, and corporations that rely on predictable and transparent U.S. policy, this move introduces a new level of uncertainty. It signals that past statements and digital handshakes can be memory-holed at will, prioritizing present messaging over a consistent and verifiable historical record. The long-term impact on the credibility of U.S. digital diplomacy remains to be seen.