Massive purge of Pentagon websites includes content on Holocaust remembrance, sexual assault and suicide prevention

Articles about the Holocaust, September 11, cancer awareness, sexual assault and suicide prevention are among the tens of thousands either removed or flagged for removal from Pentagon websites as the department has scrambled to comply with Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s order to scrub “diversity” content from all its platforms.

Articles about the Holocaust, September 11, cancer awareness, sexual assault and suicide prevention are among the tens of thousands either removed or flagged for removal from Pentagon websites as the department has scrambled to comply with Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s order to scrub “diversity” content from all its platforms. A database obtained by CNN shows that more than 24,000 articles could be purged, with many gone already. The scrub goes well beyond just the removal of images from the Pentagon’s visual database, known as DVIDS, and includes articles from across more than 1,000 websites hosted by the department. The Pentagon previously said in a memo last month that it would be removing news and feature articles promoting diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) content. Pentagon Press Secretary John Ullyot said in a statement Wednesday that the Defense Department was “pleased by the rapid compliance” across the Pentagon with the directive removing DEI content from all platforms. “In the rare cases that content is removed – either deliberately or by mistake – that is out of the clearly outlined scope of the directive, we instruct the components and they correct the content so it recognizes our heroes for their dedicated service alongside their fellow Americans, period.” But dozens of the articles either flagged for removal or removed already — but still accessible via the Internet Archive’s Wayback machine — and reviewed by CNN have no ostensible connection to DEI programs; race theory; gender ideology or identity-based programs.