Google, like Meta before it, has made what appears to be a strategic decision to bend the knee to the Trump administration and Republican leadership. In a letter addressed to the US House Judiciary Committee and released by Chairman Jim Jordan, the company claimed that the Biden administration attempted to pressure it to remove content that didn’t explicitly violate its content policies. To rectify the situation, the company committed to allowing users who had their YouTube accounts terminated over things like COVID-19 misinformation and denial of the results of the 2020 presidential election a path to return to the platform.
In the letter—which was signed by Dan Donovan, an attorney representing Google and YouTube parent company Alphabet—the company claimed that, during the coronavirus pandemic, the company experienced the Biden administration breathing down its neck. It claimed 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.” It also called any attempts by the government to influence content moderation policy “unacceptable and wrong.” (For whatever it’s worth, platforms like YouTube started cracking down on misinformation around covid-19 before Biden took office.)
Gizmodo reached out to Google for comment about its communication with the Trump administration and content moderation, but did not receive a response at the time of publication.
The language of Alphabet’s letter echoes what Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said during his turn through the ringer last year. At the time, Zuckerberg wrote, “I believe the government pressure was wrong.” Notably, Zuck offered an apology of sorts and said, “I regret that we were not more outspoken about it,” and claimed that “I also think we made some choices that, with the benefit of hindsight and new information, we wouldn’t make today.” Google doesn’t really cop to doing anything wrong in its letter, it just makes a real point to hammer home how unbearable the Biden administration was when it came to requesting content takedowns.
While YouTube doesn’t actively take blame, it is taking steps to reverse its past decisions. Most noteworthy is a plan to reinstate creators who were removed under content policy rules that are no longer active. “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 company wrote in its letter. The company did not respond to a request for additional information about the process to reinstate an account at the time of publication.
It seems in practice that not all creators will actually be allowed to return. On X, YouTube indicated that it will launch a “limited pilot project that will be available to a subset of creators in addition to those channels terminated for policies that have been deprecated.” Beyond that, details are sparse, other than some lip service to Trump-aligned creators. “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 wrote to Congress.
So why is Alphabet waving the white flag on defending its previous content policies? A potential clue is at the very end of the letter. There, the company acknowledges that Jim Jordan’s committee “has taken important investigative steps to highlight that onerous obligations under laws such as the Digital Services Act and Digital Markets Act may stifle innovation and restrict access to information,” referencing the European Union’s rules that seek to regulate platforms like YouTube to provide more protections for users.
The Trump administration has reportedly weighed options to punish the EU for these rules, which do primarily affect tech firms headquartered in the US (though they operate globally), in an effort to get the bloc to back off regulating Big Tech. Google, which currently faces accusations of operating a monopoly under EU law, would almost certainly like to receive some regulatory leeway. If that means allowing AlexJonesFan420 to upload videos about how covid is a government psyop, it’s probably a trade Google is willing to make. Welcome back, alt-right pipeline! It’s like you never left.