Google recognized that there was censorship during Biden's administration, and may lift the ban on thousands of American YouTuber accounts.

Elon Musk turns GOP (Republican House Judiciary Committee) post on X, celebrating Big Win For Freedom (! Google admits through lawyer's public letter that there was a censorship system during President Biden's term, apologizing through a lawyer's letter Google may unblock accounts of thousands of American YouTubers, Google publicly admits mistakes, America is great and victorious again!

It is worth noting that although Google apologized for the lawyer's letter, there is some mystery in Article 24, the Chinese translation is as follows:

24. YouTube values the 'conservative' voices on the platform, recognizing that these creators have a wide influence and play an important role in civic discourse. The company is aware that these creators are one of the groups shaping today's online consumption, and they have launched 'must-watch' interviews, giving the audience the opportunity to directly listen to the voices of political figures, celebrities, business leaders, etc.

English original text:

YouTube values conservative voices on its platform and recognizes that these creators have extensive reach and play an important role in civic discourse. The Company recognizes these creators are among those shaping today’s online consumption, landing “must-watch” interviews, giving viewers the chance to hear directly from politicians, celebrities, business leaders, and more.

What controversial remarks did Trump make during the global COVID pandemic? The most famous ones were calling Covid 19 the China Virus and suggesting removing the heads of members of the White House Coronavirus Task Force and Dr. Anthony Fauci, an advisor to the Biden administration. Many conservative supporters criticized and responded at that time.

American Youtuber banned by Google for criticizing Trump's remarks

Google through lawyers to GOP that it may offer creators who were previously blocked by YouTube for criticizing Trump's political comments on topics such as COVID-19 and elections the opportunity to return to the platform.

Google also acknowledged the following situation to the House Judiciary Committee:

1. The Biden administration is pressuring Google to review Americans' creative content and to delete content that does not violate YouTube policies.

2. The Biden administration's review pressure is 'unacceptable and wrong'.

3. Public debate should not come at the expense of relying on 'authority'.

4. The company will never use third-party "fact-checkers".

5. European regulatory laws target American companies, including the removal of legal content and threatening speech towards the United States.

These major statements were made by GOP Chairman Jordan after issuing a subpoena to Google and conducting a year-long investigation into Google.

Full text of Google's apology lawyer letter

Dear Chairman Jordan:

This statement of fact is submitted on behalf of our client Alphabet, Inc. and its subsidiary YouTube (collectively "Alphabet" or "the Company") in response to the subpoenas issued by the House Judiciary Committee (the "Committee") on February 15, 2023 and March 6, 2025.

During the committee investigation, Alphabet provided response information to the committee to fulfill its supervisory responsibilities, produced internal records providing extensive testimony, including more than 40 response documents and transcripts of interviews with 20 senior executives who voluntarily participated.

2. Alphabet is a conglomerate, with Google being the largest. Alphabet's mission is to organize global information and make it universally accessible and beneficial. Alphabet is dedicated to creating practical products for everyone, and the company also aspires to provide users with the tools they need to enhance their knowledge.

The company is committed to doing its part to maintain the security, reliability, and open freedom of speech of the digital ecosystem. Alphabet's design philosophy is to serve everyone; favoring a particular point of view is inconsistent with the company's values or commercial interests. Alphabet's business model relies on being a useful source of information for everyone and being a home for users of various backgrounds. Therefore, Alphabet has a natural, long-term business motive to apply and formulate its policies in a consistent, fair, and independent manner.

Committee and its investigation

4. The company appreciates the accountability led by Chairman Jim Jordan of the House Judiciary Committee, as well as its crucial role in advancing the core American values of 'freedom of speech'.

5. The company is committed to upholding freedom of speech. This commitment is unwavering and will not yield to political pressure.

6. The transparency of the interaction between the government and private platforms is crucial for cultivating public trust and upholding the principle of freedom of speech; the committee's investigation has revealed new information, enhancing the public's understanding in this regard.

The Biden administration and Alphabet Inc.

7. The COVID-19 pandemic is an unprecedented period, and online platforms must make decisions on how to strike the best balance between freedom of speech and responsibility, including the responsibility to review user-generated content that may cause harm in the real world.

8. Biden administration senior officials, including White House officials, have been in constant communication with Alphabet, pressuring the company on certain user-generated content related to the COVID-19 pandemic that does not violate its policies. While the company continues to independently formulate and enforce its policies, Biden administration officials continue to pressure the company to remove non-violative user-generated content.

Online platforms, including Alphabet, are striving to address these decisions, while government officials, including President Biden, are creating a political atmosphere, trying to influence their behavior based on concerns about false information on the platform.

Any government, including the Biden administration, attempting to dictate how companies audit content is unacceptable and wrong, and companies have consistently opposed such practices citing violations of the First Amendment.

Youtube

11. The mission of YouTube is to give everyone a voice and show them the world. YouTube is building and improving tools and systems every day to help creators, viewers, and businesses find and share information. Globally, more than 2 billion logged-in users visit YouTube every month, with over 500 hours of content uploaded every minute. It's an extremely diverse community of creators from over 100 countries who speak 80 languages. Users watch over 1 billion hours of videos on YouTube every day.

12. The views on the YouTube platform are more extensive than any other source of information in history. YouTube will be committed to cultivating self-expression and nurturing a thriving creative and information ecosystem in its diverse user base, becoming an engine of economic opportunity.

YouTube has created new economic opportunities for artists, creators, podcasters, journalists, and small businesses, allowing them to share their creativity and products in the United States and globally.

14. According to a study by the Oxford Economic Research Institute, YouTube's creative ecosystem provided over 490,000 full-time jobs for the United States in 2024, contributing $55 billion to the U.S. economy.

YouTube's content review methods and commitment to freedom of speech

15. YouTube highly values protecting freedom of speech and providing a platform for various perspectives.

16. YouTube's community guidelines and terms of service apply equally to all users, from ordinary citizens to the most well-known public figures - and all types of content, regardless of their expressed views.

The company has transparently improved the policy framework related to COVID-19 to ensure further debate and discussion on the platform.

a. YouTube has never established community guidelines prohibiting discussion of the origin of the COVID-19 pandemic.

b. YouTube announced publicly in 2023 that it terminated multiple COVID-19 content policies.

c. Starting from December 2024, YouTube has discontinued the remaining independent COVID-19 policies, allowing discussions on various treatment methods for COVID-19.

18. On the key issue of medical content, YouTube's policy continues to evolve with the dynamic environment. Health authorities have changed guidance over time, and Alphabet's policy is also evolving. YouTube's current policy allows for a broad range of content related to COVID-19 and elections. While relying on health authorities in this context is well-intentioned, the company realizes that this must not come at the expense of the public's debate on these important issues.

19. YouTube continues to encourage diverse perspectives and believes that creators should be able to openly discuss political views on the platform. In June 2023, YouTube terminated a policy that allowed discussion of widespread fraud, errors, or malfunctions that may have occurred in the 2020 and previous US presidential elections.

20. Regardless of the political atmosphere, YouTube will continue to support freedom of speech on its platform, especially when it comes to political debate issues. Political debates and discussions are in the public interest, so YouTube has expanded the coverage of educational, documentary, scientific, and artistic content on its platform.

21. Unlike other major platforms, YouTube has not yet implemented any fact-checking procedures to identify compensated fact-checking partners to support the production of audit content. YouTube will not and will not authorize fact-checkers to take action or label content in any of the company's services.

22. In June 2024, YouTube began offering a feature on YouTube that allows users to add annotations to provide relevant, timely, and easy-to-understand video background information. This pilot feature has been launched on the US mobile end and English version, and YouTube will continue to collect user feedback on the feature. YouTube also has a rich comment section where viewers can comment on and share their opinions on the content created by creators.

23. The company terminated its service until 2023 and until 2024 due to certain channels repeatedly violating its community guidelines (regarding the integrity of elections). YouTube's community guidelines now allow for more content related to COVID-19 and election integrity. In order to demonstrate the company's commitment to freedom of speech, if creators are terminated for repeatedly violating the now outdated COVID-19 and election integrity policies, YouTube will provide them with the opportunity to rejoin the platform.

24. YouTube values conservative voices on its platform, recognizing the significant influence these creators have in public discourse. The company is aware that these creators are one of the groups shaping today's online consumer behavior, and they have launched 'must-watch' interviews to give audiences the opportunity to directly listen to the voices of politicians, celebrities, business leaders, and more.

Regulatory landscape

25. The transparency of the interaction between the government and private enterprises is crucial for fostering public trust and upholding the principle of freedom of speech. Laws around the world affect the availability of Alphabet products and services, and the company publishes data on content removal requests in its quarterly transparency reports, aiming to provide information for discussions on online content regulation.

26. Governments and law enforcement agencies will propose legal requirements based on their perspectives to review content, and failure to comply with these requirements will face severe penalties. Alphabet has consistently resisted overly broad or inappropriate user data and content deletion requests proposed by the government, and even completely refused certain requests.

27. The committee has taken significant investigative measures, emphasizing that the onerous obligations stipulated in the 'Digital Services Act' and 'Digital Markets Act' may stifle innovation and restrict access to information. These laws have imposed disproportionate regulatory burdens on American companies, which have long been concerned that the 'Digital Services Act' may pose risks to freedom of speech within and outside the EU, depending on the implementation of certain provisions. The 'Digital Services Act' could be interpreted as requiring Alphabet and other intermediary service providers to delete legal content, thereby jeopardizing these companies' ability to develop and implement global policies that support freedom of speech and access to information. The 'Digital Services Act' may pave the way for substantive regulation of legal speech, including through risk mitigation, usage codes of conduct and crisis protocols, as well as out-of-court dispute resolution mechanisms. Alphabet has always been attentive to these risks and will continue to remain vigilant in defending these rights.

Rights Disclaimer

28. The provision of this information does not constitute a waiver by the Company, nor does it intend to waive any rights or privileges, including any applicable attorney-client privilege, work product privilege, or other evidentiary privilege, or any objections to the Commission's requests or subpoenas. The statements in this document are based on reasonably available information, not intended to cover all information relevant to the Commission's requests or subpoenas, nor do they provide a detailed description of the information discussed.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me.

Yours sincerely,

Daniel F. Donovan

Alphabet Legal Counsel

Copy: Dear Jamie Raskin, Senior Member

Ehren K. Halse, lawyer

This article states that Google acknowledges the existence of censorship during the Biden administration and may unblock thousands of American YouTuber accounts, as reported first by Chain News ABMedia.