DOD leadership orders components to scrub DEI content across websites, social media

Newly installed Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell on Thursday issued a memo calling for all Defense Department components to scrub any diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) content from their websites and social media platforms.

By March 5 — next Wednesday — DOD components must take down all “news and feature articles, photos, and videos that promote Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI)” from the web, according to the directive, calling the effort a “digital content refresh.” That media must be archived and retained following Pentagon records management policies, states the memo from Parnell, the assistant to the secretary of defense for public affairs.

The Defense Media Activity has been tasked with playing a lead in the matter, given its role in hosting a vast swath of the DOD’s web content. It “will support systematic content removal” from the Defense Visual Information Distribution Service (DVIDS) — the department’s repository of content and media like photos and videos, among other things — and the American Forces Public Information Management System (AFPIMS), the legacy platform upon which DMA hosts roughly 1,000 websites for DOD entities.

But ultimately, the memo states, “Components are responsible for archiving and removing any DEI content on AFPIMS and content that has not been systematically identified on DVIDS.” Additionally, those components that don’t host websites on AFPIMS are solely responsible for the removal of any DEI content.

If any DEI content remains on AFPIMS websites after the March 5 deadline, the Defense Media Activity will remove it — though components can request extensions.

The same goes for any social media accounts that display DEI information. If components are unable to remove and archive that content by March 5, “they must temporarily remove from public display all news articles, photos and videos published between January 20, 2021, and January 19, 2025, until the content is fully reviewed and DEI content removed,” the memo states.

It continues: “While DEI-related content outside of this date range must also be removed, articles, photos, and videos from the last four years are the immediate priority to align DoD communication with the current Administration.”

On those social platforms, the department requires components to issue a blanket statement “to acknowledge content was removed to align with the President’s executive orders and DoD priorities in accordance with DoD Instruction 5400.17, ‘Official Use of Social Media for Public Affairs Purposes.'” The directive says similar guidance may be necessary for websites “to aid user experience.”

On social media, examples of this have already emerged:

Speaking about the new guidance, a U.S. military official told DefenseScoop that archiving the content “doesn’t do anything to support the warfighter. It honestly doesn’t do anything outside of a talking point.

“It may be time intensive for some units, but it’s probably an opportunity for the military to downsize their social media accounts, which they’ve been trying to do for some time,” the official continued. “At the end of the day, we support the administration, and we’re focused on warfighting. This is not a big deal and we’re focused on fighting and winning our nation’s wars.”

There are a few exemptions to the guidance, particularly involving websites with customer-focused content about things like base conditions, activities and services; current and historical leadership bios; DOD Education Activity communications; and operations and activities of the U.S. military’s Morale, Welfare and Recreation and Commissary functions.

The memo references President Donald Trump’s various executive orders on eliminating DEI in the federal government and Secretary Pete Hegseth’s “Restoring America’s Fighting Force” memo from January as the drivers for the content removal.

These actions come as the Defense Media Activity is in the midst of a major modernization of its web-hosting mission, looking to consolidate the more than 1,000 websites it supports into a central platform called WEB NextGen — an effort that could result in major cost savings for the department. DMA awarded an 18-month contract in September 2023 to test capabilities for the new platform in anticipation of shuttering AFPIMS.

Brandi Vincent contributed to this story.