Last Week in Censorship: February 23 – March 2, 2026

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The Trump administration’s attempts to silence critics, control academic speech, and force private companies to operate as arms of the government continue, with escalating censorship through federal regulatory agencies, blacklisting an AI company for refusing to drop safety guardrails, and court cases over federal law enforcement’s use of facial recognition against Americans who dare to exercise their constitutional rights — while the hypocrisy of its “free speech” agenda comes into sharper focus. Meanwhile, the administration unveiled a plan to help Europeans bypass their own governments’ content moderation rules — even as it continues to silence critics at home.

Nonprofit Coalition Fights FTC’s Retaliatory Probe of Media Matters.

On February 23, seventeen nonprofit organizations — led by The Intercept’s Press Freedom Defense Fund — filed an amicus brief urging the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals to block the Federal Trade Commission’s investigation of Media Matters for America. The brief argues that the FTC’s probe was launched in retaliation for Media Matters’ 2023 reporting that corporate ads were appearing alongside pro-Nazi content on Elon Musk’s X platform. A federal judge had already blocked the investigation in August 2025, calling it “a straightforward First Amendment violation,” but the FTC appealed. The coalition — which includes the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Freedom of the Press Foundation, Reporters Without Borders USA, and the National Coalition Against Censorship — warned that the FTC’s tactic of launching pretextual investigations and keeping them open to coerce compliance “has become a troublingly common form of government intimidation.” The ACLU of D.C., FIRE, and the national ACLU also filed their own amicus brief supporting Media Matters, showing how government investigations can be weaponized to intimidate media outlets. Oral arguments are expected in April.

FTC Pressures Apple Over News Curation.

FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson’s February 12 letter to Apple CEO Tim Cook — warning that Apple News may violate the FTC Act by allegedly suppressing conservative publications — continued to generate criticism through the end of the month. On February 26, FIRE attorneys published a widely circulated essay calling the FTC’s position “baseless,” noting that the agency was simultaneously censoring NewsGuard, retaliating against Media Matters, and now threatening Apple’s editorial judgment. The Cato Institute’s David Inserra called it a clear case of confusing “free expression and censorship,” writing that Apple’s editorial choices are “core First Amendment territory” regardless of whether they favor liberal outlets.

FIRE Seeks Injunction to Restore ICE Reporting Tools.

On February 27, FIRE asked a federal judge in Chicago to issue an injunction prohibiting the Trump administration from “continuing to coerce” Apple and Meta to suppress apps and social media groups that track Immigration and Customs Enforcement activity. The motion comes in FIRE’s February 11 lawsuit against Attorney General Pam Bondi and DHS Secretary Kristi Noem on behalf of Kae Rosado and Mark Hodges, who respectively created a Facebook group documenting ICE operations in Chicago and the “Eyes Up” app for sharing footage of ICE activity nationwide. Both platforms were removed in October 2025 after Bondi boasted to Fox News that “we reached out to Apple today demanding they remove the ICEBlock app from their App Store — and Apple did so.”

Federal Agents Use Facial Recognition to Target Maine Residents Who Recorded ICE Operations.

On February 23, Protect Democracy filed a class-action lawsuit (Hilton v. Noem et al.) on behalf of Maine residents against DHS, ICE, CBP, and their top officials — including Secretary Kristi Noem — for using sophisticated surveillance technology to target Americans who exercised their First Amendment right to observe and record immigration operations in their communities. The named plaintiffs, Elinor Hilton and Colleen Fagan, are lifelong Maine residents who lawfully observed and recorded DHS operations in public and were threatened and labeled “domestic terrorists” as a result. The suit alleges that federal agents used facial recognition software and license plate readers to collect and catalogue personal information about observers, adding them to federal law enforcement databases solely because they engaged in constitutionally protected activity. The complaint raises four First Amendment counts and seeks a temporary restraining order to immediately halt the government’s surveillance and data collection.

Trump Bans Anthropic From Government After AI Company Refuses to Drop Safety Guardrails.

In the most dramatic example yet of the administration retaliating against a private company for exercising independent judgment, President Trump on February 27 directed every federal agency to immediately stop using technology made by AI company Anthropic, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth designated the company a “supply chain risk” — a penalty typically reserved for foreign adversaries. The move came after weeks of escalating conflict over Anthropic’s refusal to grant the Pentagon unrestricted use of its AI model, Claude — the first AI system to be approved for deployment on the military’s classified networks. Anthropic had requested two specific guardrails: preventing the use of its technology for mass surveillance of Americans and for fully autonomous weapons targeting without human involvement. The Pentagon rejected those conditions, demanding the right to use AI models for “all lawful purposes.” Amodei responded that the Pentagon’s efforts would not change the company’s red lines, writing that “using these systems for mass domestic surveillance is incompatible with democratic values” and that “today, frontier AI systems are simply not reliable enough to power fully autonomous weapons.” An open letter signed by prominent tech and AI leaders warned that punishing a company for declining to change its contract “sends a clear message to every technology company in America: accept whatever terms the government demands, or face retaliation.” Trump’s own former senior AI policy adviser, Dean Ball, called the action “attempted corporate murder” and said he could no longer recommend starting an AI company in the United States.

UNC Board Approves New Academic Freedom Definition.

On February 26, the University of North Carolina Board of Governors voted to approve a sweeping new definition of academic freedom across the state university system. While the policy states that faculty have the right to teach and research “controversial or unpopular ideas,” it also declares that “academic freedom is not absolute” — language that faculty groups warn will be used to restrict what professors can discuss in the classroom.

UT System Limits “Controversial Topics” in the Classroom.

The University of Texas System Board of Regents approved an initiative requiring faculty to exclude “unrelated controversial or contested matters” from syllabi and to only teach content pre-approved through course descriptions. Faculty must also pledge not to “coerce, indoctrinate, harass, or belittle students.” Brian Evans, president of the Texas AAUP chapter, warned that “a faculty member is not going to be able to talk about current events without risking being fired.” FIRE sent a letter to the Board of Regents arguing the policy amounted to censorship. The policy passed the Board without a single question from its members.

“Freedom.gov”: Anti-Censorship Abroad, Censorship at Home.

The State Department confirmed this week that it is developing “Freedom.gov,” a web portal designed to help users in Europe and other countries bypass their governments’ content moderation rules. The site — which currently displays the message “Freedom is coming” — will reportedly include a built-in VPN allowing users to appear as though they are accessing the internet from the United States. Human Rights Watch called the project a case of “selective” free speech advocacy, noting the cruel irony: while the administration frames European content regulation as censorship, it has simultaneously pressured Apple, Meta, and Google to remove ICE-tracking apps, launched retaliatory investigations against media watchdog groups, and demanded tech companies unmask anonymous critics. Even more striking, the administration’s own foreign aid cuts defunded the very organizations that build censorship-circumvention tools and document internet shutdowns in genuinely repressive environments. As HRW’s Deborah Brown wrote, “Free expression is a fundamental right, not a prop for political theater.”

Despite the relentless pace of censorship, the courts and civil society continue to push back — and new coalitions are forming that cross traditional ideological lines.

A federal judge’s ruling that the FTC’s investigation of Media Matters was “a straightforward First Amendment violation” is now being defended at the appellate level by a coalition of 17 nonprofit organizations, backed by a separate amicus brief from the ACLU and FIRE — showing the breadth of the free speech coalition rallying against regulatory retaliation. FIRE’s aggressive litigation strategy continues to expand: the group is now simultaneously suing the FTC on behalf of NewsGuard, challenging the government’s suppression of ICE-monitoring tools, and publicly dismantling the FTC’s legal theories against Apple News.

Protect Democracy’s new class-action suit in Maine is taking the fight directly to DHS’s surveillance apparatus, seeking a court order to halt the use of facial recognition and license plate readers against Americans engaged in constitutionally protected observation of government activity. House Democrats held the first congressional hearing dedicated specifically to the administration’s censorship campaign, creating a formal public record. Senator Ron Wyden published a widely read defense of Section 230 as the last line of defense for everyday Americans’ ability to document and share information about government activity online.

The FOIA release revealing that Americans overwhelmingly complained about government overreach — not Jimmy Kimmel — during the ABC suspension scandal showed that the public sees through the administration’s authoritarian playbook even when corporate media capitulates to it.

Yes, the country is under immense strain – but we’re not broken yet. Hang in there, and we’ll see you next week.