In the US, the right to speak openly online is legally protected by the First Amendment. As a result, the government does not directly censor political or social viewpoints on the internet. That said, the US government does censor certain types of content. ISPs block websites on behalf of the government if they provide access to specific types of illegal content. In some cases, for example, they do this to protect children, to protect intellectual property, or to prevent access to gambling sites in states where they are illegal. Websites or web pages that provide access to pirated content can be served a DMCA notice and must be excluded from search results to make them unavailable. In addition, people with legitimate reasons can exercise the right to be forgotten to have information about themselves excluded from search results. While organizations like Freedom House don’t consider censorship to be a massive problem in the US, it is worth noting that the situation is far from perfect. It is also worth noting that the situation had deteriorated slightly the last time that Freedom House published its Freedom on the Net report. It is also worth noting that a report by the Intercept in 2023 revealed that the US government pressures private companies to remove content deemed to be disinformation. Some companies, such as Facebook, purportedly even provide a special portal for government agents to remove content themselves. This reveals that the government may potentially have the power to block access to information that it doesn’t want people to see; under the guise of national security.