Google has committed to reinstating YouTubers who had their accounts banned over medical and political content after Joe Biden‘s administration pressured the company to censor dissidents.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, published a letter sent to him from the company’s attorneys on Tuesday.
Within the five-page ‘statement of facts’ sent to the panel are claims that the former president and his administration applied ‘unacceptable and wrong’ pressure on YouTube to silence creators with whom the Democrats disagreed.
Included in some of those impacted are Trump’s former advisor Steve Bannon, Trump’s Deputy Assistant to the president Sebastian Gorka and FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino.
Bongino was banned from YouTube in 2022 for questioning the effectiveness of masks in preventing COVID-19, an infraction the company labeled as misinformation at the time.
The sprawling letter notes how senior Biden administration officials conducted ‘repeated and sustained outreach’ to coerce Alphabet – Google and YouTube’s parent company – to censor and remove content related to COVID-19.
Alphabet was repeatedly pestered by unnamed senior Biden administration officials to remove content that the federal officials deemed inappropriate, despite it not violating the company’s policies.
The letter mentions how ‘the Administration’s officials, including President Biden, created a political atmosphere that sought to influence the actions of platforms.’