 "Flowers lie at the base of a flagpole, as the USAID building sits closed. Reuters")
Hundreds of US government websites have become inaccessible since Monday.
According to a list from the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), over 350 out of nearly 1,400 federal websites were down on Monday.
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Key information on topics such as vaccines, veterans’ care, hate crimes, and scientific research has also been removed. While some agencies have taken down entire sections of their websites, others have only lost a few pages.
Despite the disruptions, websites for the Treasury and State Departments remain functional.
But why did hundreds of government websites shut down? Does Trump have something to do with this?
Let’s take a look:
Why dozens of US Government websites have shut down
Several US government websites, including those linked to the departments of defence, commerce, energy, transportation, and labour, as well as the Central Intelligence Agency and the Supreme Court, have gone offline, AFP reported.
Many of the removed pages seem to be connected to a directive from the Donald Trump administration, which set a deadline of 5 pm on Friday to end any programmes promoting “gender ideology” and to delete related documents or media. According to The New York Times, several of the missing pages contained terms such as “inclusion” or “transgender.”
Impact Shorts
View AllIt remains unclear why other pages were taken down, how many will be permanently removed, or whether some may be reinstated with modifications.
Meanwhile, some government websites that remain online have already had references to diversity, gender, and climate change removed, as reported by The Washington Post and other reports.
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Could there be an Elon Musk link to this?
The development comes as the Trump administration continues its controversial push to reduce the size of the US government.
Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and SpaceX and the world’s richest person, is leading Trump’s cost-cutting measures under the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
On Monday, Musk announced that the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) would be shut down, describing the agency, which operates relief programmes in around 120 countries, as a “criminal organisation.”
Notably, USAID’s website was unavailable, and employees were instructed via email not to report to their offices on Monday.
A number of US government websites, including those of major public health agencies, have also removed references to LGBTQ issues following a directive from Trump last week ordering the termination of all taxpayer-funded programmes that promote “gender ideology,” AFP reported.
Trump has already signed executive orders eliminating diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives within the government.
Crucial data and resources concerning HIV and LGBTQ youth have also vanished from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) website, raising concerns among health experts.
On Monday, the CDC’s main pages for both topics displayed the message: “The page you’re looking for was not found.”
“The removal of HIV- and LGBTQ-related resources from the websites of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other health agencies is deeply concerning and creates a dangerous gap in scientific information and data to monitor and respond to disease outbreaks,” the Infectious Diseases Society of America said in a statement.
Ensuring public access to this information is “especially important as diseases such as HIV, mpox, sexually transmitted infections and other illnesses threaten public health and impact the entire population,” the statement added.
“We’ve been kept in the dark”
A USAID employee told WIRED that staff members were racing against time to save digital copies of regulations from archived versions of the site. Some employees were also locked out of their systems.
“We haven’t been allowed to be in contact with our partners,” the employee told WIRED. “We’ve been kept in the dark, and this is just an extension of that.”
Other sites, including HealthData.gov, Oversight.gov, and Vaccines.gov, also went periodically offline. It is still unclear whether these brief outages are related to the recent executive order or if they are the result of unrelated technical issues.
However, some sites, such as ProsperAfrica.gov, have clearly stated: “In order to be consistent with the President’s Executive Orders, this website is currently undergoing maintenance as we expeditiously and thoroughly review all of the content.”
What Trump’s executive order on DEI calls for
The executive action calls for the termination of DEI programmes, mandates, policies, preferences, and activities within the federal government, along with the review and revision of existing federal employment practices, union contracts, and training policies or programmes.
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Heads of agencies, departments, and commissions have 60 days to terminate, to the maximum extent allowed by law, all DEI, DEIA, and “environmental justice” offices and positions, action plans, equity-related grants or contracts, as well as end all DEI or DEIA performance requirements.
The order also targets federal contractors who have provided DEI training or materials, as well as grantees who received federal funding to support or advance DEI programmes, services, or activities since former President Joe Biden took office in 2021.
Notably, dozens of diversity, equity, and inclusion programmes have already been shut down in Alabama, Florida, Kentucky, North Carolina, Iowa, Nebraska, Texas, and other states. Almost 200 diversity, equity, and inclusion staff positions were either cut or reassigned across North Carolina’s public university system, even before the order was issued.
When asked earlier if government websites would be shut down while information on diversity, equity, and inclusion was removed, Trump told reporters: “I don’t know. It doesn’t sound like a bad idea to me.”
He added: “I think DEI is dead, so (if) they want to scrub the websites, that’s okay with me.”
With inputs from agencies