Google vowed on Tuesday to offer YouTube accounts that were permanently banned for political speech the ability to be reinstated, and the big tech giant admitted that it once faced pressure from the Biden administration to remove content about COVID-19.
Google detailed its remarkable shift in a document that a lawyer for the company provided to the House Judiciary Committee.
The new policy from Google, also known by its parent company Alphabet, could affect both average users and well-known figures like FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino, White House counterterrorism chief Sebastian Gorka and "War Room" podcast host Steve Bannon, all of whom were permanently banned in recent years for COVID-19 or election-related content.
"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if the company terminated their channels for repeated violations of COVID-19 and elections integrity policies that are no longer in effect," the lawyer representing Google wrote.
Bongino ended his conservative radio show, which livestreamed on Rumble, when he joined the administration this year. He has attributed his popularity on that platform to permanently losing his YouTube account in 2022. YouTube permanently banned Bongino, who had one of the most followed accounts on the platform, for spreading what it said was COVID-19 misinformation about masks.
The document from Google also noted that YouTube "values conservative voices on its platform" and acknowledged that the creators "have extensive reach and play an important role in civic discourse."
The document included a section about the Biden administration and said White House officials at the time pushed Google behind the scenes to remove perceived misinformation related to COVID-19. The lawyer for Google also noted that the big tech platform censored content independently of the Biden administration based on its internal policies but that the company has since rolled back those policies.
"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 wrote.
Google detailed its remarkable shift in a document that a lawyer for the company provided to the House Judiciary Committee.
The new policy from Google, also known by its parent company Alphabet, could affect both average users and well-known figures like FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino, White House counterterrorism chief Sebastian Gorka and "War Room" podcast host Steve Bannon, all of whom were permanently banned in recent years for COVID-19 or election-related content.
"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," the lawyer representing Google wrote.
Bongino ended his conservative radio show, which livestreamed on Rumble, when he joined the administration this year. He has attributed his popularity on that platform to permanently losing his YouTube account in 2022. YouTube permanently banned Bongino, who had one of the most followed accounts on the platform, for spreading what it said was COVID-19 misinformation about masks.
The document from Google also noted that YouTube "values conservative voices on its platform" and acknowledged that the creators "have extensive reach and play an important role in civic discourse."
The document included a section about the Biden administration and said White House officials at the time pushed Google behind the scenes to remove perceived misinformation related to COVID-19. The lawyer for Google also noted that the big tech platform censored content independently of the Biden administration based on its internal policies but that the company has since rolled back those policies.
"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 wrote.