Jan 24, 2025 14:00:00

Trump administration deletions and changes to official government websites can be monitored in real time on GitHub

By

Ben Nuttall

The Trump administration has been pushing ahead with bold reforms since taking office on January 20, 2025, announcing that it would revoke many of the executive orders of the previous Biden administration, and government agency websites have also undergone major changes. The 18F , a U.S. government agency, has visualized the specific deletion and editing process taking place on government agency websites through GitHub commit history.

Commits · 18F/handbook · GitHub
https://github.com/18F/handbook/commits/main/

GitHub Is Showing the Trump Administration Scrubbing Government Web Pages in Real Time
https://www.404media.co/github-is-showing-the-trump-administration-scrubbing-government-web-pages-in-real-time/

18F is an organization within the General Services Administration that was established following the failure of the launch of the American health insurance website Healthcare.gov during the Obama administration. The organization is known for open-sourcing many government projects on GitHub.

In fact, if you look at the commit history for 18F on GitHub, you can see a list of when the website was edited or deleted.

IT media 404media has noted the removal of a Slack bot called the 'Inclusion Bot,' which had the ability to detect racist, sexist, ableist, or other discriminatory language, notify users, and suggest alternative expressions.

Also removed is accessibility information for employees with visual impairments, such as guidance requiring employees to include visual instructions when introducing themselves in Google Meet or Zoom.

In recruitment documents, references to fairness have been intentionally removed, such as changing the phrase 'Teams should consider fairness and study complexity factors when determining compensation for study participants' to 'Teams should consider study complexity and other factors.'

404media points out that the Trump Administration is not trying to hide these changes, but emphasizes the importance of these changes being trackable in real time through GitHub's commit history.