Reddit users’ reactance to the 2025 CDC Data Purge: characterizing the removal of health information as a perceived threat to individual freedom

Following an executive order signed by Donald Trump to prevent ‘woke ideology’ from permeating everyday American lives and institutions, the Department of Health and Human Services complied by removing a large amount of health-related information from government websites. These information pages and websites pertain to reproductive health, adolescent and LGBTQ + health, and HIV. In response, contributors to the subreddit r/DataHoarder collaboratively moved to archive and preserve as much of this health information as possible. Informed by psychological reactance theory (PRT), we examine how contributors to the r/DataHoarder subreddit (a) characterize the 2025 CDC Data Purge as a perceived threat to their freedom(s) and articulate motivations to regain such freedom(s), as well as (b) describe their efforts to archive data as a means of restoration. Employing reflexive thematic analysis, we identified four major themes: Defining the Data Purge: ‘A Modern book banning’; Act now! Motivation (or lack thereof) to archive CDC data; Restoration in the context of the 2025 CDC Data Purge; and Bounding the group: r/DataHoarder camaraderie. We conclude by discussing the significance of this politically-driven discourse in a mediated context, theoretical implications for PRT, and future avenues for research.