Thousands of pages from US government websites have been removed or changed because of Donald Trump's law against diversity initiatives and "gender ideology," The New York Times reports.
According to Trump's order, US government websites had to remove controversial materials by 5 p.m. on Friday. Since then, more than 8,000 websites have been removed, including those related to vaccinations, veterans' care, hate crimes, scientific research, and other topics.
More than 3,000 pages were removed from the CDC website. Among them were research articles on the prevention of chronic diseases, recommendations for the treatment of sexually transmitted diseases, information on the symptoms of Alzheimer's disease, overdose prevention materials, and vaccination advice for pregnant women (probably due to the use of the term "pregnant people").
Also, more than 3,000 web pages were removed from the U.S. Census Bureau's website. The vast majority are articles related to research topics and methodology. Other missing pages include data management policies and documentation for several datasets and surveys.
More than a thousand pages disappeared from the Office of Justice Programs website, 200 pages from Head Start, a program for low-income children, and hundreds of pages from other government websites, such as materials on hate crimes at the state level or press reports on the use of the national shooting and disaster hotline.
Also, 20 web pages were removed from the website of the US National Institute of Standards and Technology, including a page detailing the organization's zero-tolerance policy on harassment and harassment.
Many of the deleted pages contained the terms "inclusion" or "transgender". Some were initially removed and then returned after words related to diversity, gender, and climate change were removed. However, there were also pages that did not contain such terms, and the reason for their removal remains unclear. It is not yet known how many of these pages will be edited and returned, and how many will be permanently removed.