State Department orders all pre-2025 official X posts removed, accessible only via FOIA

On February 7, 2026, the State Department directed that every post made by its official accounts on X before President Trump returned to office on January 20, 2025 be removed from public view. According to screenshots of internal guidance seen by NPR, the directive applies to all of the department's active official accounts — those of U.S. embassies and missions, ambassadors, and department bureaus and programs — and the affected material spans the Obama, first Trump, and Biden administrations. The posts will be internally archived but taken offline; staff were told that anyone seeking the older posts would have to file a Freedom of Information Act request. The removed material includes far more than press statements: embassy July 4 livestreams, photos of COVID vaccine donations, condolences, cultural programming, and the day-to-day record of who the United States engaged with, when, and how.

A State Department spokesperson said the goal "is to limit confusion on U.S government policy and to speak with one voice," adding that the accounts are "one of our most powerful tools for advancing the America First goals and messaging" of the administration, and that "all archived content will be preserved in alignment with Federal Record Act requirements." Current and former diplomats and academics warned that the change makes the historical record harder to trace. As retired senior foreign service officer Orna Blum put it, FOIA "is slow, discretionary, and often redacted. It's a backstop — not a substitute for open archives." The move departs from established transition practice, in which federal agency accounts such as @StateDept are handed to the incoming administration intact, with prior posts remaining publicly visible.

The Standing records this as an instance of suppression of government data. The removal does not destroy the posts, but it withdraws a searchable, openly accessible public record and replaces it with a discretionary request process — narrowing the public's ability to see the documented conduct of its own diplomacy. It arrived alongside a broader pattern of removing public information from government platforms, including environmental and health data, national park signage, and, the same week, the CIA's abrupt termination of the long-running World Factbook.