"YouTube and Google parent company Alphabet sent a letter to House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) on Tuesday in which it claimed, like Zuckerberg before it, that senior Biden administration officials "conducted repeated and sustained outreach" to the company to get it to remove content promoting COVID-19 conspiracy theories and misinformation from YouTube. That content, Alphabet noted, didn't violate YouTube's COVID-19 policies."
"Election misinformation content, however, was subject to YouTube's election-integrity policies, which the platform enforced until retiring them in 2023. Those banned from the platform include former conservative commentator and now Deputy FBI Director Dan Bongino, Deputy Assistant to the President and former Viktor Orban advisor Sebastian Gorka, and Trump ally Steve Bannon. Alphabet has since retired its stand-alone COVID-19 and election-fraud rules, the company said in its letter."
""It is unacceptable and wrong when any government, including the Biden administration, attempts to dictate how the Company moderates content," Alphabet said through its lawyers. "No matter the political atmosphere, YouTube will continue to enable free expression ... particularly as it relates to issues subject to political debate." YouTube values conservative voices on its platform In addition to offering banned creators a path back, Alphabet also pointed out that YouTube has never used outside"
Alphabet told House Republicans that senior Biden administration officials conducted sustained outreach asking the company to remove content promoting COVID-19 conspiracy theories and misinformation from YouTube, even when that material did not violate YouTube's COVID-19 policies. The company noted that election misinformation had been governed by separate election-integrity policies that were enforced until retired in 2023, and listed several conservative figures who had been banned. Alphabet said it has retired its stand-alone COVID-19 and election-fraud rules, condemned government attempts to dictate moderation, pledged to enable free political expression, and affirmed it does not use outside fact-checkers for moderation.
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