The year 2025 has arrived, bringing a glimmer of hope for free speech advocates. The Biden administration's Global Engagement Center (GEC), a key player in the government's extensive censorship system, is finally defunct. This is a positive step, as highlighted in my book, "The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage," but it's just the beginning. We must commit to dismantling the entire censorship apparatus, root and branch.

While the Biden administration fought to preserve the GEC's funding, Republicans successfully blocked it in the continuing resolution. However, even with the GEC's closure, the Biden administration leaves behind an unprecedented censorship legacy. Over the past three years, a complex web of grants to academic and third-party organizations has fueled blacklists and pressured advertisers to abandon targeted websites. Topics ranging from election integrity to social justice and climate change have fallen under the censor's gaze.

My testimony before the special committee investigating this censorship system revealed an alarming alliance of corporate, government, and academic entities working against free speech. House investigations exposed government officials' role in directing censorship requests to social media platforms, effectively circumventing First Amendment protections by using these groups as proxies.

Even without the GEC, other offices like the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) within the Department of Homeland Security remain active. CISA's head, Jen Easterly, expanded their mandate to include "cognitive infrastructure," encompassing not only disinformation and misinformation but also "malinformation" – factual information used out of context.

These groups operate as a censorship consortium, attracting millions in federal funding. The Election Integrity Partnership (EIP), formed in collaboration with Stanford University at CISA's request, established a reporting system to process "Jira tickets" flagging objectionable viewpoints, targeting politicians, commentators, and even satirical websites like The Babylon Bee. Stanford's Virality Project advocated censoring even truthful information that might promote vaccine hesitancy.

Internal communications reveal a deliberate effort to avoid public scrutiny. For instance, Kate Starbird, director of the University of Washington Center for an Informed Public, advised against providing specific disinformation examples to prevent their use by critics. Similarly, the University of Michigan’s James Park promoted their WiseDex First Pitch program as a way for platforms to outsource "the difficult responsibility of censorship."

The censorship network is intricate, with interconnected grants and systems. The EIP collaborated with the GEC, which in turn contracted with the Atlantic Council. The Global Disinformation Index (GDI), funded by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), ranked conservative and libertarian sites as the most dangerous sources of disinformation while labeling liberal sites as trustworthy.

The GEC's closure is a victory, but the system remains largely intact. This redundant network is designed to withstand such losses. Like the infamous Disinformation Governance Board, dismantling one component doesn't address the broader problem. These "disinformation specialists" will find new homes in other agencies, academia, and even private platforms like BlueSky, a haven for those seeking to avoid dissenting opinions.

To truly restore free speech, the Trump administration and Congress must prioritize eliminating these funding streams. We need legislation prohibiting federal funds for censorship activities, including grants to academic and NGO groups. This will require a concerted effort to dismantle the entire system, ensuring the United States gets out of the censorship business once and for all.