After years of contending with the Biden White House and its anti-free speech Big Tech collaborators, free speech defenders face an administration far friendlier to their values and, as a result, a wildly different social media landscape.
During this 21st annual Free Speech Week, the Media Research Center proudly honored Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk as the sole winner of its 2025 MRC Free Speech Award for his dedication and for giving his life for American values. In addition, the MRC has recognized Trump officials and would also like to underscore the hard work and dedication of public and foreign advocates, legal officers and individuals in the legislature who have continued the fight for free speech.
In particular, members of the legislature have defunded Biden's censorship initiatives and blocked heinous anti-free speech legislation. They have also moved to shut down emerging threats, targeting foreign efforts to force American tech companies to silence Americans.
Of course, recent developments have taken the heat off of Congress. Big Tech companies responded to President Donald Trump’s victory by moving from open censorship to less obvious methods, such as presenting their users with AI chatbots and news aggregators that bury or ignore media to the right of MSNBC. Congress needs to be on the lookout for algorithmic bias, accomplishing much the same effect as the censorship of old: no one can see what conservatives post.
Trump’s AI action plan has prohibited federal contracts for Big Tech companies with woke and discriminatory AI models. But Congress still has its work cut out for it.
Friends of free speech in Congress need to fight any attempts to force or allow Big Tech companies to enter into anti-competitive contracts with media sources to train their models. At the same time, Congress must hold Big Tech companies accountable, while continually looking for ways to ensure that these social media behemoths do not choke the life out of disfavored publications. Free speech warriors have beaten back widespread attempts to delete and ban speech that leftists hate. Now the job before Congress is to prevent aggregators, platforms, and chatbots from simply doing the same in the shadows, hiding the content leftist companies are now seemingly afraid to ban.
Going forward, these are the men and women who stood out in 2025 and who Americans can trust to fight the more insidious forms of censorship that Big Tech is moving towards.
The MRC is proud to recognize the following members of Congress for their actions in defense of Americans’ free speech rights:
- House Appropriations Chair Tom Cole
For the second year in a row, Chairman Cole has fought valiantly to ensure that government appropriations cannot be redirected to platforms using censorship tools like NewsGuard and Ad Fontes.
- Congressman Brandon Gill
Congressman Gill has been a stalwart champion to end federal subsidies to media outlets that have used taxpayer dollars to silence conservative voices, including NPR and PBS. In addition, Congressman Gill has shown exceptional talent at committee hearings in highlighting the absurdity and extremism of the left’s censors.
- Congresswoman Harriet Hageman
Congresswoman Hageman has no equal when it comes to defending free speech rights. This Congress, she has again continued her quest to enact the First Amendment Accountability Act, which would allow victims of censorship to seek justice against the bureaucrats who unconstitutionally silenced them.
- Sen. Bill Hagerty
Senator Hagerty’s time in the Senate has been spent protecting Americans’ First Amendment liberties, leading efforts to reform Section 230, curb government abuse, combating China’s threat to our civil liberties, and empowering President Trump to complete his mission of restoring free speech.
- House Speaker Mike Johnson
Speaker Mike Johnson is the staunchest defender of free speech rights ever to serve as Speaker of the House. He has fought to end the Biden-era censorship initiatives, ended federal subsidies to media outlets that used taxpayer dollars to silence conservative voices, and made a goal-line stand against Blumenthal’s censorship bill, even after lame duck Senate democrats mounted a last-minute push in the final weeks of the Biden administration.
- House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan
Chairman Jordan has worked tirelessly and forcefully to uncover and document the conspiracy between the Biden administration and several Big Tech companies to censor American speech. He also fought to keep foreign censors from targeting Americans by requiring American social media companies to report to the House Judiciary Committee when they are pressured by foreign entities to censor information.
- Sen. Mike Lee
Senator Mike Lee, who held the line against the Blumenthal censorship bill, has continued to be one of Congress’s most vocal advocates for First Amendment rights and liberties, also fighting to defund and shutter the anti-free speech Global Engagement Center.
- Sen. Eric Schmitt
Sen. Schmitt, who took his fight with the jawboning Biden administration to the Supreme Court (Missouri v. Biden), has been outstanding in 2025 as well. Senator Schmitt continued his work of highlighting and investigating the rampant government censorship that occurred under the Biden administration. His work is critical to ensuring this type of censorship never happens again. In addition, Senator Schmitt worked to cut off the subsidization of fake news outlets NPR and PBS, which had long been zealous advocates of censorship.
