My Bloomsbury book "Ethics, Information, and Technology" was published on Nov. 13, 2025. Purchases can be made via Amazon and this Bloomsbury webpage: https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/ethics-information-and-technology-9781440856662/
Showing posts with label erasing history. Show all posts
Showing posts with label erasing history. Show all posts
"The State Department is removing all posts on its public accounts on the social media platform X made before President Trump returned to office on Jan. 20, 2025.
The posts will be internally archived but will no longer be on public view, the State Department confirmed to NPR. Staff members were told that anyone wanting to see older posts will have to file a Freedom of Information Act request, according to a State Department employee who asked to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation by the Trump administration. That would differ from how the U.S. government typically handles archiving the public online footprint of previous administrations.
The move comes as the Trump administration has removed wide swaths of information from government websites that conflict with the president's views, including environmentalandhealth dataandreferencesto women, people of color and members of the LGBTQ+ community. The government has also taken down signs atnational parksmentioning slavery and references to Trump's impeachments and presidency at theNational Portrait Gallery.
The removal of State Department X posts from public view appears to be less about ideological differences with past statements and more about control of future messaging. The directive will see the removal of posts from Trump's first term as well as those under then-Presidents Joe Biden and Barack Obama.
In response to NPR's questions about the removals, an unnamed State Department spokesperson said the 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. It will preserve history while promoting the present." The spokesperson said the department's 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.""
"The Trump administration is trying to memory-hole slavery, and a federal judge is running out of patience with their shenanigans.
At a hearing last week over the Trump administration’s decision to rip out materials discussing slavery at George Washington’s former Philadelphia residence Senior U.S. District Judge Cynthia Rufe — a George W. Bush appointee! — delivered a sharp rebuke to the DOJ lawyers defending the government’s actions. The exhibit in question, located on Independence Mall, was created by the City of Philadelphia in partnership with the National Park Service and tells the story of the nine enslaved people who lived and labored in Washington’s home. Earlier this year, federal workers reportedly took a crowbar to the plaques, citing President Donald Trump’s executive order purporting to “restore truth and sanity to American history.” But let’s be so fucking for real right now, it’s a literal whitewashing of it.
Judge Rufe was not impressed. “You can’t erase history once you’ve learned it,” she said. “It doesn’t work that way.” That theme only sharpened as the hearing went on. Assistant U.S. Attorney Gregory in den Berken attempted to defend the removals by gesturing vaguely at disagreement and discretion. “Although many people feel strongly about this one way, other people may disagree or feel strongly another way,” he said, adding, “Ultimately, the government gets to choose the message it wants to convey.”
Danger, Will Robinson. Though appearing before a Republican-appointed judge, it does NOT mean they’re cool with the current administration’s we-get-to-rewrite-history plan. Judge Rufe cut off the AUSA, according to reports, saying, “That is a dangerous statement you are making. It is horrifying to listen to,” she said. “It changes on the whims of someone in charge? I’m sorry, that is not what we elected anybody for.”...
At present, the government has stripped the site of all substantive discussion of the enslaved people who lived there, leaving only their names — Austin, Paris, Hercules, Christopher Sheels, Richmond, Giles, Oney Judge, Moll, and Joe — engraved into a cement wall. Plaintiffs are asking the court to order the exhibit restored, and Judge Rufe instructed DOJ to ensure that the remaining materials are not damaged any further, and she intends to personally inspect the removed materials. She also indicated she intends to rule swiftly, particularly with the nation’s 250th birthday celebration looming and a surge of visitors expected at Independence Mall."
"Religious leaders are among those objecting to the National Park Service’s removal of a historic exhibit about slavery located steps away from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania’s Liberty Bell and that featured African Methodist Episcopal Church founderRichard Allen andAbsalom Jones, the first Black priest in The Episcopal Church.
On Jan. 22, exhibit supporters and city officials learned that NPS staffers had removed panels from “The President’s House: Freedom and Slavery in the Making of a New Nation,” an exhibit that, according to a page on the park service’s website, examined “the paradox between slavery and freedom in the founding of the nation.” As of the afternoon of Jan. 28, the website said “Page not found” where that information previously had been.
The open-air exhibit, which opened in 2010, is located on the site where Presidents George Washington and John Adams lived in the 1790s and features a replica of the exterior of the dwelling and a wall with the names of the nine enslaved Africans Washington brought there.
Independence National Historical Park, which hosted the exhibit, was cited in a March 2025 executive order signed by President Donald Trump. Titled “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History,” the order directed the U.S. Department of the Interior to ensure that monuments at national sites “do not contain descriptions, depictions, or other content that inappropriately disparage Americans past or living (including persons living in colonial times), and instead focus on the greatness of the achievements and progress of the American people.”
The Rev. Mark Tyler, historiographer for the AME Church and former pastor of Mother Bethel AME Church, which was founded by Allen and is within walking distance of the exhibit, said the loss of the panels is “a gut punch.”"
"National Park Service staff on Thursday took down an exhibit on slavery at Independence National Historical Park in Philadelphia, which had been targeted last year by President Donald Trump inan executive orderon “restoring truth and sanity to American history.”
The exhibit was at the President’s House Site, where George Washington lived as president. The informational panels discussed Washington’s ownership of enslaved people, as well as the broader history of slavery, and included details about their lives.
The Park Service has been removing information on historic racism, sexism, LGBT rights, slavery and climate change since last year as it carries out Trump’s executive order...
The exhibit included information on the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 alongside images of slaves being beaten. Michael Coard, a founding member of the coalition, said removing the signs sought to erase history.
“Don’t you think that Black men, Black women, Black children were whipped and beaten before and after the Fugitive Slave Act?” Coard said.
The removals come as nearby Independence Hall is closed for renovations in preparations for the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
“It’s not only the erasure of history. On the eve of the 250th anniversary of the birth of this country, this is a historical outrage,” Coard said. “This is historical blasphemy.”
Cindy MacLeod, former superintendent at the park, praised the work that had gone into the exhibit, calling the removal “vandalism.”
The exhibit was at the President’s House Site, where George Washington lived as president. The informational panels discussed Washington’s ownership of enslaved people, as well as the broader history of slavery, and included details about their lives
"Philadelphia is taking legal action against the Trump administration following the National Park Service’s decision to dismantle a long-established slavery-related exhibit at Independence National Historical park, which holds the former residence of George Washington.
The city filed itslawsuitin federal court on Thursday, naming the US Department of Interior and its secretary, Doug Burgum, the National Park Service, and its acting director, Jessica Bowron, as defendants. The lawsuit seeks a court order requiring the exhibits to be restored while the case proceeds.
The display stood at the President’s House site, once home to George Washington and John Adams, and includedinformation recognizing people enslaved by Washington, along with a broader chronology of slavery in the US...
The Democratic governor of Pennsylvania, Josh Shapiro, sharply criticized the decision to take down the signs, arguing that Trump “will take any opportunity to rewrite and whitewash our history”
“But he picked the wrong city – and he sure as hell picked the wrong Commonwealth,” Shapiro added in a messageposted on X. “We learn from our history in Pennsylvania, even when it’s painful.”...
Congress had encouraged the National Park Service in 2003 to formally acknowledge the enslaved people who lived and worked at the President’s House. The lawsuit states that in 2006, the city and the agency agreed to collaborate on creating an exhibit for the site, which opened in 2010 with a memorial and informational panels focused on slavery.
The removal of the exhibit is part of a broader effort by the Trump administration to eliminate cultural content that does not align with his policy agenda."
[Kip Currier: Trump 2.0's ongoing efforts to censor and erase history and science are appallingly Orwellian, yet also childishly regressive and unevolved.
When this modern Dark Age of willful ignorance and information suppression has passed, the uncomfortable truths, silenced voices, and inescapable facts will need to be restored to our collective historical record and cultural heritage institutions.]
[Excerpt]
"At Independence National Historical Park in Philadelphia, the Trump administrationtook down an exhibiton the contradiction between President George Washington’s enslavement of people and the Declaration of Independence’s promise of liberty.
At Muir Woods National Monument in California, the administration dismantled a plaque about how the tallest trees on the planet could help store carbon dioxide and slow the Earth’s dangerous warming.
And at Lowell National Historical Park in Massachusetts, Trump officials ordered the National Park Service to stop showing films about the women and immigrants who once toiled in the city’s textile mills.
Across the country, Park Service workers have started taking down plaques, films and other materials in connection with a directive from President Trumpto remove or rewrite content that may “disparage Americans” or promote “corrosive ideology.”"
[Kip Currier: Trump 2.0's efforts to censor, distort, and propagandize history, as these Smithsonian instances illustrate, are appalling; but they're nothing the world hasn't experienced before from other despotic rulers throughout history who have striven to falsify and hide their conduct and crimes.
The good news is that people like these reporters are documenting as many of these examples as possible and, at some future point, the historical record can be restored.
Moroever, as the article's comments frequently note, many, many people already know the truth about Trump's two impeachments, arraignments in four separate criminal cases, conviction for 34 felonies, etc. That knowledge can't be purged from the minds of the people who already know his character and actions.]
[Excerpt]
"The National Portrait Gallery removed a swath of text that mentioned President Donald Trump’s two impeachments and the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection as it swapped out a prominent photo of him this week."
Share this with as many people as possible to raise awareness and promote advocacy for the historical integrity and unfiltered authenticity of museums within the Smithsonian Institution system.]
[Excerpt]
"Lonnie Bunch, in the meantime, is holding a delicate line. On 18 December, a new letter from the White House arrived for him. The Smithsonian had fallen short in providing the information requested on 12 August, it said. “We wish to be assured,” it continued, “that none of the leadership of the Smithsonian museums is confused about the fact that the United States has been among the greatest forces for good in the history of the world. The American people will have no patience for any museum that is diffident about America’s founding or otherwise uncomfortable conveying a positive view of American history.” Then came the threat. “As you may know, funds apportioned for the Smithsonian Institution are only available for use in a manner consistent with Executive Order 14253, ‘Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History,’ and the fulfilment of the requests set forth in our August 12, 2025 letter.”
Bunch wrote a note to all his staff the following day, quietly affirming, once more, the organisation’s autonomy. “For nearly 180 years, the Smithsonian has served our country as an independent and nonpartisan institution committed to its mission – the increase and diffusion of knowledge – for all Americans. As we all know, all content, programming, and curatorial decisions are made by the Smithsonian.”
WithJD Vance on the board of regents, along with Republican members of Congress, the question hovers: how long will 73-year-old Bunch survive in his position? “Lonnie knows his time is short,” one DC museum director told me. “It’s a question of how he decides to go, and of which hill he chooses to die on.”"
"Over the past year, President Trump has engaged in a steady campaign to rewrite the history of Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, when his supporters, believing lies of a rigged election, smashed windows and doors and assaulted law enforcement officers.
His revisionist history is taking on new significance ahead of this year’s midterm elections — and could carry more weight if Republicans lose control of Congress, which the president has said he believes may happen.
On Tuesday, the five-year anniversary of the Jan. 6 attack, Mr. Trump was again seeding doubt about the integrity of American elections. “Our elections are crooked as hell,” Mr. Trump told congressional Republicans.
Offering a glimpse into his concerns about an election loss in the midterms, Mr. Trump said Republicans needed to retain control of the House because he expected to face a third impeachment trial if Democrats won. He said he would not call for this year’s election to be canceled because critics would accuse him of being a dictator."
"January 6th participant Pamela Hemphill, who refused President Trump's pardon: "Once I got away from the MAGA cult and started educating myself about January the 6th, I knew what I did was wrong...I am guilty, and I own that guilt...I had fallen for the president’s lies."
"On the fifth anniversary of the pro-Trump mob attack on the Capitol, the Trump administration created a new page on the official White House website that represented the president’s most brazen bid yet to rewrite the history of the Jan. 6 riot with false claims aimed at absolving him of responsibility.
The site blames Capitol Police officers, who defended lawmakers that day, for starting the assault; Democrats, who were the rioters’ main targets, for failing to prevent it; and former Vice President Mike Pence, who rejected falsehoods about the 2020 election, for allowing the results to be certified.
Mr. Trump has long sought to whitewash the violence and vandalism committed on Jan. 6, 2021, and reject responsibility for having instigated it. But the webpage, promoted on government social media accounts, put the official imprimatur of the White House on an astonishingly misleading account of the Capitol attack."
[Kip Currier: These Interior Department directives of the Trump administration are censorious and should not be normalized in a democracy.
Historical facts and accounts are communal and collective in nature. Historical narratives and chronicles are not the property of an administration to cherry-pick, deselect, deny, clean up, and cover up. Yes, history is interpretative in nature. But history belongs collectively to all of us, not the administrative government in charge at a particular time: the good, the bad, and the ugly aspects of history.
George Orwell's 1984 (published in 1949, four years after the Allied nations' defeat of the fascist Axis powers in 1945) warns us where this kind of state-sanctioned censorship can lead. A 2024 Smithsonian article ("What Does George Orwell's '1984' Mean in 2024?") on the 75th anniversary of the book identifies its most important themes as:
"the denial of objective truth, which we see everywhere about us, every war that’s currently taking place anywhere in the world and in quite a lot of domestic political situations, too; the manipulation of language … and the use of words to bamboozle people; and the rise of the surveillance society. … That to me, is the definition of the adjective ‘Orwellian’ in the 21st century.”
1984 describes the fictional Oceania totalitarian super-state's so-called Ministry of Truth: a department and policy approachthatrewrites and represses history. It spreads propaganda. It inverts truth:
"War is peace.Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.
Will more teachers and faculty members, historians, university and college administrators and boards, librarians, museum curators, archivists, and other U.S. citizens speak out against this administration's autocratic sanitization and suppression of history?]
[Excerpt]
"The Interior Department plans to remove or cover up all “inappropriate content” at national parks and sites by Sept. 17 and is asking the park visitors to report any “negative” information about past or living Americans, according to internal documents.
It’s a move that historians worry could lead to the erasure of history involving gay and transgender figures, civil rights struggles and other subjects deemed improper by the Trump administration.
Staff at the National Park Service, which is part of the Interior Department, were instructed to post QR codes and signs at all 433 national parks, monuments and historic sites by Friday asking visitors to flag anything they think should be changed, from a plaque to a park ranger’s tour to a film at a visitor’s center.
Leaders at the park service would then review concerns about anything that “inappropriately disparages Americans past or living (including persons living in colonial times),” according to slides presented this week at a meeting with park superintendents. By Sept. 17, “all inappropriate content” would be removed or covered, according to the presentation."
[Kip Currier: Every information center (e.g. libraries, archives, museums) and cultural heritage and higher education institution should think hard about the questions raised in this article. Like this glaring one the reporter raises:
"How will experts and their fellow Americans understand what went on during Trump’s term when those charged with setting aside the artifacts documenting history refuse to do so?"]
[Excerpt]
"For generations, official American documents have been meticulously preserved and protected, from the era of quills and parchment to boxes of paper to the cloud, safeguarding snapshots of the government and the nation for posterity.
Now, the Trump administrationis scrubbingthousands of government websites of history, legal records and data it finds disagreeable.
To historians and archivists, it points to the possibility that Trump’s presidency will leave less for the nation’s historical record than nearly any before it and that what is authorized for public release will be sanitized and edited to reinforce a carefully sculpted image the president wants projected, even if the facts don’t back that up.
How will experts and their fellow Americans understand what went on during Trump’s term when those charged with setting aside the artifacts documenting history refuse to do so?"
Last week, in what he calls an “impulsive” decision prompted by Columbia’s capitulation to Trumpadministration demands, he decided to leave—not just Yale, but the country altogether. This fall he’ll decamp to the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, where he was offered the position of Bissell Hyatt Chair in American Studies.
“Educational authoritarianism is frequently accompanied by more general restrictions on knowledge,” he writes in Erasing History, “and by attempts to push mythic representations in place of that knowledge.” In the book he likens conservative activist groups seekingbook bans to Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels keeping lists of books to be censored, and outlines attackson the rightsof LGBTQ+ people by various fascist regimes throughout history (among which he counts the Trump administration). When I ask whether he sees warning signs in sectors outside of education, he responds, “Are you fucking with me?”"...
[Vanity Fair] I think an anxiety for many people is, will we only really realize how bad things are once it becomes too late to do anything about it? How would you counsel people who are wondering how you know that it’s time to try to get out?
[Jason Stanley] Not my business. My business is to describe what’s happening. And you can read what I write and decide for yourself, but I’m not going to make other people’s decisions for them. I’m not into moralizing or lecturing; that’s not my thing. I’m an intellectual. What I do is I describe reality as I see it. I would love to live in the United States, but I want to live in the United States because it’s a place that is free. A lot of Americans don’t care about freedom. If you look at the polls, they say that Americans don’t value democracy at all. I have a different set of values. Democracy comes before the price of eggs. But what I think is particularly foolish and naive and stupid is to give up democracy and raise the price of eggs."
[Kip Currier: Information professionals and centers can be leaders in preserving histories -- like that of influential astronomer Vera Rubin. Right now, too, libraries, archives, and museums can continue to collect books by and about these kinds of trailblazers. They can digitize and make available illuminating records and artifacts, like diaries and photos. They can create interactive exhibits and virtual reality experiences to raise our awareness of their struggles and triumphs.
Once this phase of selective erasure and targeted minimization of historically marginalized persons and groups has inevitably passed, so too can information professionals, historians, reporters, authors, and myriad others work to restore these pioneering people to the historical record.
A larger question is why the current administration is laboring so hard to erase and undervalue the histories and achievements of individuals who have inarguably faced discrimination -- and in countless inspiring instances have surmounted formidable barriers -- as members of disenfranchised communities?
Why do they fear these histories and uplifting achievements?
They work to erase these histories so that others won't be empowered by these stories and lessons. Not knowing these stories enables the erasers to control the narratives and, more importantly, influence how people think. They don't want people to be aware of what boundary breakers have done to break through barriers to equal opportunities. Why?
They benefit from unequal power structures. They fear equality and change. They want to define "truth". So, they stoke fear, apathy, division, and distrust to fortify the inequitable power structures that advantage them and disadvantage everyone else.
The world has seen revisionist campaigns like this many times before, though, and I'm confident that truth and reason will eventually prevail again. But it's going to take hard work and strategy and creativity and resilience and teamwork to achieve.
Media outlets, like ProPublica and others committed to truth telling and accuracy of information, serve inestimable roles in uncovering deception, revealing truths, and reporting the facts. As the renowned lawyer John Adams (and future 2nd President of the United States from 1797-1801) pointed out to a Massachusetts court in 1770, "Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence."
Those of us in the information professions who care about truth and the historical record -- and the stories of everyone, not just the privileged few -- are going to have to do our parts to stand up to the self-appointed revisionists, censors, and erasers. Many information professionals are already stepping up in ways that make a positive difference every day. Like challenging those who want to remove books from our libraries.
Filmmakers, graphic novelists, photographers, screenwriters, faith leaders, investigative reporters, musicologists, grant funders, poets, independent bookstores, lawyers, actors, civil watchdog groups, data analysts, publishers, ethnographers, artisans, and countless others are also working to push back against erasure and disenfranchisement of diverse peoples.
I will share stories about ongoing efforts to counter the silencing of diverse voices in future blog posts throughout this year.]
[Excerpt]
"During his first presidential term, Donald Trump signeda congressional actnaming a federally funded observatory after the late astronomer Vera Rubin. The act celebrated herlandmark research on dark matter— the invisible, mysterious substance that makes up much of the universe — and noted that she was an outspoken advocate for the equal treatment and representation of women in science.
“Vera herself offers an excellent example of what can happen when more minds participate in science,” theobservatory’s website said of Rubin— up until recently.
By Monday morning, a section of her online biography titled, “She advocated for women in science,” was gone. It reappeared in a stripped-down form later that day amid a chaotic federal government response to Trump’scampaign against diversity, equity and inclusion programs.
While there are far more seismic changes afoot in America than the revision of three paragraphs on a website, the page’s edit trail provides an opportunity to peer into how institutions and agencies are navigating the new administration’s intolerance of anything perceived as “woke” and illuminates a calculation officials must make in answering a wide-open question:
How far is too far when it comes to acknowledging inequality and advocating against it?"
