Many are missing Trump's real major announcement

When Donald Trump said he had a "major announcement," many did not expect a commercial featuring him as a superhero and promoting his new NFTs. Many have had fun with it. Many have noted the commercial might not have really been his announcement.

Because Trump did have an important major announcement on Thursday that is receiving less attention.

It shouldn't. It's an issue that could affect the future of free speech, expression, and the sharing of information in America.

The New York Post reports:

Former President Donald Trump vowed Thursday that he will ban the federal government from using the terms 'misinformation' and 'disinformation' to describe domestic speech if he retakes the White House.

The 76-year-old Trump made the pledge as part of a broader 'free speech' platform announced in a video policy statement shared with The Post — vowing also to impose a seven-year ban on former FBI and CIA workers handling private-sector US consumer records.

Trump said this month’s 'Twitter Files' releases 'confirmed that a sinister group of Deep State bureaucrats, Silicon Valley tyrants, left-wing activists, and depraved corporate news media have been conspiring to manipulate and silence the American People.'

'The censorship cartel must be dismantled and destroyed — and it must happen immediately,' Trump said in the video, which is expected to be the first in a series of policy announcements as part of his 2024 presidential campaign.

How would Trump do this?

The story noted:

Some of Trump’s proposed policies — such as limiting Section 230 legal immunity for tech platforms unless they act with political neutrality — were pushed by the 45th president since his time in office, while others would forge new ground.

Trump said that one of his first acts as the 47th president in January 2025 would be to prohibit federal policing of lawful domestic speech.

'Within hours of my inauguration, I will sign an executive order banning any federal department or agency from colluding with any organization, business, or person, to censor, limit, categorize, or impede the lawful speech of American citizens,' he said.

Trump wasn't done.

The Post noted:

'I will then ban federal money from being used to label domestic speech as ‘mis-‘ or ‘dis-information.’ And I will begin the process of identifying and firing every federal bureaucrat who has engaged in domestic censorship — directly or indirectly — whether they are the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Health and Human Services, the FBI, the DOJ, no matter who they are.'

This is not small news.

In a time when when Elon Musk is showing us how the censorship regime at the old Twitter operated, and how they targeted and suppressed conservative news and opinion - with the federal government reportedly being involved - an American president taking action to provide an equal playing field for all would be a significant move.

What Big Tech or the federal government calls "misinformation," because it doesn't suit their purposes or challenges them, can later turn out to be true.

The 2021 Hunter Biden laptop story is a prime example.

There are others. As the Post story noted:

Opponents of online censorship note that speech deemed to be 'misinformation' or 'disinformation' can later gain widespread acceptance. For example, Facebook banned discussion of the Wuhan Institute of Virology’s possible role in the COVID-19 pandemic until mid-2021. Government officials who had steered funding toward risky research at the lab said it was an unfounded conspiracy theory, but it later gained broader credibility — including from US spy agencies — as one of two possible explanations for the pandemic’s origin.

Exactly.

The way you arrive at truth, solutions, or anything of value is through free and open debate where the best ideas hopefully win. This can't happen when only the Left can decide what can or cannot be said.

Maybe Donald Trump might be able to do something about that in the future.