On Tuesday, Sept. 23 Google announced that it will be reinstating previously banned accounts for political speech, alleging that the Biden administration had pressured the company to remove content related to the COVID-19 pandemic and elections.
The announcement was made via a document submitted to the House Judiciary Committee and could have wide ranging impacts for everyday users as well as high-profile figures, including FBI Deputy Director, Dan Bongino, War Room podcast host and former Trump staffer, Steve Bannon and White House counterterrorism chief Sebastian Gorka.
Each of these high-profile users have been previously banned from certain Google platforms for content the tech giant had flagged as either COVID or election misinformation.
According to Interesting Engineering, a lawyer representing Google said, “Reflecting the Company’s commitment to free expression, YouTube will provide an opportunity for all creators to rejoin the platform if the company terminated their channels for repeated violations of COVID-19 and elections integrity policies that are no longer in effect.”
Bongino, who hosted a conservative podcast on Rumble before joining the Trump administration previously had his channel on YouTube permanently suspended in 2022. He said that Google, banning his channel on YouTube, contributed to the popularity of his channels on other platforms, like Rumble.
READ MORE:
- Exclusive: Report Links Infant Organ Harvesting to Elite Families in China’s Communist Party
- Audio Reveals Yu Menglong’s Abdomen Was Cut Open to Retrieve a USB Drive
Success
You are now signed up for our newsletter
Success
Check your email to complete sign up
White House pressure
Google’s document also alleged that senior officials in the Biden administration pressured the company to remove certain content despite it not violating any Google policies.
It also states that the Biden administration “created a political atmosphere that sought to influence the actions of platforms based on their concerns regarding misinformation.”
The lawyer said that Google described this pressure as “unacceptable and wrong.”
“Senior Biden Administration officials, including White House officials, conducted repeated and sustained outreach to Alphabet and pressed the Company regarding certain user-generated content related to the COVID-19 pandemic that did not violate its policies,” the lawyer claimed.
Google also said that in addition to managing political pressures it will never rely on any third-party “fact checkers” to review content while expressing concerns about censorship laws in Europe, such as the Digital Services Act, which could force American companies to remove what would otherwise be lawful content.
Like Meta, YouTube has said it will not use outside fact-checkers and signaled it wanted to welcome more voices onto the platform.
Google’s admissions come while a Republican-led investigation by the House Judiciary Committee into alleged Big Tech censorship progresses.
Another lawsuit, Murthy v. Missouri—filed by two Republican attorneys general alleging Big Tech censorship—was recently dismissed after the Supreme Court ruled the plaintiffs lacked standing.
However, lower courts sided with the plaintiffs, with one judge commenting that the Biden administration appeared to have “assumed a role similar to an Orwellian ‘Ministry of Truth.’”
