Social Security Administration Workers Can No Longer Read the News at Work

The Trump administration's sweeping attacks on journalism and federal workers continued Thursday with an announcement that Social Security Administration employees can no longer access "general news" websites on government devices.

The Washington Post noted the email in an update to its Thursday reporting that earlier this week, acting SSA Commissioner Leland Dudek told top staff that members of President Donald Trump's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), headed by billionaire Elon Musk, are leading efforts to shrink the agency—which critics slam as a push toward privatization.

"DOGE people are learning and they will make mistakes, but we have to let them see what is going on at SSA," Dudek said, according to notes from the meeting. "I am relying on longtime career people to inform my work, but I am receiving decisions that are made without my input. I have to effectuate those decisions."

The newspaper reported that "on Thursday morning—three hours after the publication of this story—an all-staff email went out to SSA employees informing them that they would be prevented 'effective today' from accessing certain websites on their government devices, including 'online shopping,' ' general news,' and 'sports.'"

The email—a screenshot of which was posted on the Musk-owned social media site X by independent journalist Justin Glawe, author of the newsletter American Doom—states that "these additional restrictions will help reduce risk and better protect the sensitive information entrusted to us in our many systems."

An SSA spokesperson said in a statement that "employees should be focused on mission-critical work and serving the American people," but they "may request an exception if they have a business need for job-specific duties."

As Glawe pointed out: "To all the people saying BUT YOU SHOULDN'T READ NEWS AT WORK—they are government employees, so reading news and staying informed is part of their job. They're not working at a car dealership."

While SSA messaging frames the policy as an effort to promote safety and efficiency, and the email did not include a list of blocked websites, Wired revealed that some outlets "at the forefront of the reporting" on DOGE have been banned:

Wired has confirmed with two sources inside the SSA that Wired.com is no longer accessible today, though it was accessible previously.

The sources also confirmed that the websites of The Washington Post, The New York Times, and MSNBC were inaccessible. However, the sources were able to access other news websites including Politico and Axios.

"Local news blocked," says one source at SSA, who was granted anonymity over fears of retribution. "So if there was a local shooting or something, I wouldn't be able to see."

It's unclear who has implemented the block list or what criteria were used to populate it, but it appears not to be based on ideological grounds, as Fox News and Breitbart are also blocked.

The policy change comes amid a flurry of reporting on Musk calling Social Security "the biggest Ponzi scheme of all time" during a recent podcast interview with Joe Rogan as well as efforts to shrink the agency and shut down multiple offices nationwide.

Over 150 House Democratswrote in a Tuesday letter to Dudek that "Social Security helps approximately 70 million beneficiaries—including seniors, people with disabilities, children, and their families—put food on the table, pay the rent, heat their homes, cover medical bills, and more... Shuttering field offices and gutting SSA staffing has nothing to do with 'governmental efficiency.'"

Other federal agencies are also under assault by DOGE and its billionaire leader—who is facing new limits from the president. Citing two officials, Politico reported that during a Thursday Cabinet meeting attended by Musk, "Trump told top members of his administration that Musk was empowered to make recommendations to the departments but not to issue unilateral decisions on staffing and policy."

While working to gut the federal government, the Trump administration has also taken aim at journalism. Amid a spat with The Associated Press over its refusal to use Trump's preferred name for the Gulf of Mexico, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt announced last week that the administration will now decide which outlets get to participate in the presidential press pool.

That came a week after the Post reported that the U.S. State Department told embassies and consulates to cancel "all non-mission critical contracts/purchase orders for media subscriptions (publications, periodicals, and newspaper subscriptions) that are not academic or professional journals."

According to the newspaper, a memo "directed procurement teams at embassies and consulates to prioritize the termination of contracts with six news organizations in particular: The Economist, The New York Times, Politico, Bloomberg News, The Associated Press, and Reuters."

Similarly, as Rolling Stone detailed Thursday: "In the first weeks of the Trump administration, DOGE canceled subscriptions to services like Politico Pro, which many agencies rely on to stay abreast of legislation moving through Congress. DOGE also incorrectly identified a contract with a wing of Thomson Reuters as going toward news subscriptions. In fact, the contract—signed by the Defense Department under the first Trump administration—was with Thomson Reuters Special Services and dealt with preventing cyber threats."

The Republican president has a long record of attacking news outlets and individual reporters—from his frequent declarations of "fake news" to reportedly inquiring about how he could jail journalists if he returned to the White House.