Several government websites have been taken down, including the USAID.gov, ForeignAssistance.gov, NeglectedDiseases.gov, and ChildrenInAdversity.gov. A WIRED analysis of more than 1,000 federal .gov websites found that at least seven sites linked to a USAID server went offline in a two-hour span on Saturday afternoon.
On Friday, Reuters reported that word of sites being taken offline was the result of confusion around new guidelines on language allowed to appear on federal sites. Agencies had been instructed to “take down all outward facing media (websites, social media accounts, etc.) that inculcate or promote gender ideology” by 5 pm EST, Friday, January 31.
The move is the latest step in the Trump administration’s move to radically remake the US government. Shortly after taking office, the Trump administration took down ReproductiveRights.gov, which provided information on reproductive health care. A growing number of US government websites have gone offline since mid-January.
Along with sites affiliated with the USAID server, Youth.gov—a US government site focused on supporting youth programs—appears to have gone offline in the past 24 hours. Before it was taken down, an archived version from the Wayback Machine showed it featured a post titled, “Preparing for MLK Jr. National Day of Service.”
A USAID employee tells WIRED that staff members are scrambling to save digital copies of regulations from archived versions of the site, and that at least some are being locked out of their systems, including personnel files, pay, and benefits information. “Decades worth of taxpayer-funded reports and analysis gone in an instant,” says the employee, who requested anonymity because they are not authorized to speak to the press. “We have no idea what is happening behind the scenes or what will be back, when, and in what form.”
Added the employee: “Staff can’t even get into the DEC (Development Experience Clearinghouse, a publicly available database of USAID documents) to secure copies of open access reports.”
Another USAID employee tells WIRED they still had access to internal work systems as of Saturday afternoon, but have limited visibility into what’s happening and why.
“We haven’t been allowed to be in contact with our partners,” says the employee, who was also granted anonymity. “We’ve been kept in the dark, and this is just an extension of that.” The employee added that they worry the agency will be slimmed down to a “skeleton of what we were.”
Other sites, including HealthData.gov, Oversight.gov, and Vaccines.gov, have also periodically gone dark. It remains unclear whether these brief takedowns are linked to the recent executive order or if some are due to unrelated technical issues. However, some sites, like ProsperAfrica.gov, explicitly state: “In order to be consistent with the President’s Executive Orders, this website is currently undergoing maintenance as we expeditiously and thoroughly review all of the content.”
WIRED built software to systematically check the status of 1,374 government domains. The tool runs periodic scans, tracking whether sites remain accessible, how their servers respond, and if the domain names still resolve. This allows us to monitor patterns in uptime and catch moments when sites suddenly vanish– sometimes reappearing minutes or hours later. Some of these outages can be attributed to routine maintenance or technical glitches. Others suggest broader infrastructure failures or deliberate removals.
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