The forces of free expression have announced another victory in the war against Big Tech censorship.
This week, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, publicized a letter from representatives of Alphabet, Inc. – the parent company of Google and YouTube – pledging to reinstate content creators who had been deplatformed for political speech. The letter confirmed that massive amounts of user-generated content had been censored at the behest of the Biden administration even when that content didn’t violate the platform’s policies.
The letter and its shocking revelations mark just the latest instance of Big Tech companies belatedly acknowledging that they colluded with the government to chill speech and shut down conversations that the Biden White House didn’t like.
The letter explicitly states, “While the company continued to develop and enforce its policies independently, Biden Administration officials continued to press the company to remove non-violative user-generated content… It is unacceptable and wrong when any government, including the Biden Administration, attempts to dictate how the company moderates content, and the company has consistently fought against those efforts on First Amendment grounds.”
The Judiciary Committee also issued a press release itemizing these admissions from Alphabet:
- The Biden Administration pressured Google to censor Americans and remove content that did not violate YouTube’s policies.
- The Biden Administration’s censorship pressure was “unacceptable and wrong.”
- Public debate should never come at the expense of relying on “authorities.”
- The company will never use third-party “fact-checkers.”
As to Alphabet’s claim to have fought against censorship “on First Amendment grounds,” that isn’t how it looked to the deplatformed creators. According to the committee’s press release, “These major admissions come after Chairman Jordan’s subpoena to Google and a years-long investigation into the company.”
In other words, were it not for pressure from congressional Republicans, Alphabet would almost certainly have kept quiet about pressure from the Biden administration to censor disfavored speech. Why all the secrecy if Alphabet didn’t have something to hide – like, say, the fact that they complied with the White House’s requests?
Jordan has been a free speech crusader since he became Chairman of the Judiciary Committee in 2023, after the GOP won control of the House. He has made targeting Big Tech platforms and their censorship operations a top priority.
In March 2023, he held hearings on the notorious “Twitter Files” under the auspices of the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government. Elon Musk had just bought Twitter (now X) and discovered that a large department of the company was exclusively devoted to processing “requests” from government officials to “moderate” content. (In Big Tech parlance, “moderate” just means “censor”).
Musk then granted journalists Matt Taibbi and Michael Shellenberger access to investigate these files. They subsequently testified before Jordan’s subcommittee. Taibbi succinctly described what they found as follows:
“We learned Twitter, Facebook, Google, and other companies developed a formal system for taking in moderation “requests” from every corner of government: the FBI, DHS, HHS, DOD, the Global Engagement Center at State, even the CIA. For every government agency scanning Twitter, there were perhaps 20 quasi-private entities doing the same, including Stanford’s Election Integrity Project, Newsguard, the Global Disinformation Index, and others, many taxpayer-funded.”
These revelations added impetus to Chairman Jordan’s active investigations into Facebook, Google, and other Big Tech companies. Because Big Tech companies slow-walked voluntary responses to information requests from the Judiciary Committee, Jordan subpoenaed the chief executive officers of Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, and Microsoft for documents and communications relating to the federal government’s reported collusion with Big Tech to suppress free speech.
At length, Facebook produced the subpoenaed documents, and Chairman Jordan took to X in July of 2023 and posted the damning evidence they revealed: “Never-before-released internal documents subpoenaed by the Judiciary Committee PROVE that Facebook and Instagram censored posts and changed their content moderation policies because of unconstitutional pressure from the Biden White House.” This had been going on since 2021 when the Biden administration wanted to silence dissent concerning its COVID-19 policies.
A year later, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg admitted on Joe Rogan’s podcast that Biden administration officials pressured the platform to censor content on COVID-19. He also acknowledged that Facebook was wrong to censor content on the infamous Hunter Biden laptop ahead of the 2020 election.
Zuckerberg then apologized for censoring this content in a widely circulated letter:
“In 2021, senior officials from the Biden Administration, including the White House, repeatedly pressured our teams for months to censor certain COVID-19 content, including humor and satire, and expressed a lot of frustration with our teams when we didn’t agree…I believe the government pressure was wrong, and I regret we were not more outspoken about it. I also think we made some choices that, with the benefit of hindsight and new information, we wouldn’t make today.”
The White House pressure on Facebook was by no means limited to unnamed staffers – the scandal included the man in the Oval Office. As Jordan has noted, “In July 2021, President Biden publicly denounced Facebook and other social media platforms, claiming they were ‘killing people’ by not censoring alleged ‘misinformation.’”
In January 2025, Zuckerberg announced that Facebook was closing its “fact-checking” operation in the United States and replacing it with a user-generated “Community Notes” system similar to the tool now used by X. This brings us back to YouTube which, as noted above, has pledged that it “will never use third-party ‘fact-checkers.’” YouTube will also provide an opportunity for all creators to rejoin the platform if their channels were terminated for “violations of COVID-19 and election integrity policies that are no longer in place.”
So, where does all this leave us? By the beginning of 2022, Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube had all created sophisticated censorship operations designed to silence anyone who failed to parrot Biden regime propaganda. After Elon Musk bought Twitter and the Republican House majority took office in 2023, conservatives collectively declared war on the “Censorship Industrial Complex,” and they have won important battles. Alphabet is the latest to surrender.
But the war is far from over. Big Tech and its Democrat allies are biding their time until Republicans are out of power and they no longer have the spotlight of government investigations on them. Then we will really see how much contrition Silicon Valley is willing to display for deciding who does and does not have First Amendment rights online.
David Catron is a Senior Editor at the American Spectator. His writing has also appeared in PJ Media, the American Thinker, the Providence Journal, the Catholic Exchange and a variety of other publications.
The time for them to speak up was when they were first being strong-armed by Biden and his crime cartel! Same with these other “latecomers.” How many innocent citizens were damaged by the corrupt Biden cartel?
Time to roundup all the Biden personnel involved. maybe send them to GTMO for new indoctrination. Heads should roll throughout the entire Demo hierarchy.
yeah it was wrong, but these communist a$$holes did it any way. they are just scrambling now to avoid lawsuits from the trump administration.
So what’s the penalties for these companies who have admittedly committed crimes?
Lawmakers need to restructure the laws that provide these platforms 0 responsibility because they are simply the “chalk board” on which others post notes. These platforms went way past being just platforms and jumped headlong into criminal censorship. The laws need to be revised to ensure that crossing that line is indeed a criminal act with consequences.
The Democrats are not much different than Hamas. This country will never be safe as long as the party exists. All they preach is violence and when the violence occurs they deny they had anything to do with it. They are the party of victims, the party of intolerance and the party of violence. If Democrats would stop shooting people gun violence will go down by 90%. But as Charlie learned, if you don’t agree with them they will kill you
The left screams Trump is banning free speech. While they themselves have been doing it for years. Google just gave in because Jordan and his committee were getting too close. Censorship and mandates under Autopen was the norm. That is why now they want to shut up those on the right by claiming the right is shutting them up. No we are calling you out on the lying and radical speech you create. Who did Charlie debate on campuses. The radical thinking student with only the left rhetoric. So ingrained they would never give an inch. Even when faced with the truth. And that is what is pervasive in this country. Evil is so deep it has taken over the left to the point that what the left says is morally ethically wrong on so many levels. But they don’t care to them it is the truth. They insult the family who just lost a loved one to an assassin’s bullet. Then when they get called out on it they don’t apologize, no tgey increase that same rhetoric. The left are at war. A war of words with a killing thrown in every day. And the perps that are guilty of these killings are all the same lifeless dull eyed 18-30 year olds. Who have been brainwashed by the ultra left, that is spouted every day on MSM and social media. The Autopen administration was the most dictatorial administration ever next to the 8 years of Obama. With Autopen we didn’t have a president we had the deep state cabal who was running this country supported by billionaires. And the censorship that was instituted by them is still going on today. The universities are the outlets to radicalize the students. That is their army who do the killings every day in this country. Can we overcome the globalists?
I guess one could say “better late than never”, but although many of us knew this, one can now see the tactics the democrats used to stymie free speech. So who is the political party most responsible for destroying democracy. I wouldn’t think that it is the party getting the most blame for it.
Time for Republicans to end the Section 230 protections for these antiAmerican platforms, which in effect are publishers and should be treated as such. No more BS!
Affirmative Action is RACIST towards White people
I have to ask, why did Big Tech cave? What kind of punishment could they have received from Govt.?
Sure … to appease the right, these companies will bow to the new leaders, and for that, they deserve what? A hip hip hooray? If sometime in the distant future, the democrats ever find a worthy candidate / cause … and win the presidency … these high tech companies will do what they feel will keep them in favor by what ever administration is in power.
A conservative administration … boldly “We agree with your values!” A democrat socialist administration … as boldly “We agree with your values!” A full on communist administration … “Seig Heil!”
Google has always been pro censorship, pro tyranny, anti liberty. As long as the same people are at the company, nothing will change but the rhetoric. Same with the current Disney company. I try really hard not to do business with either organization but it’s nearly impossible as they seem to be embedded everywhere.
Thank you for publicizing yet another case of the Democrats stooping as low as they can go to beat us. This brought to mind when Obama’s goons went after the Tea Party and other conservative organizations, to the point that some of them collapsed. Thank God for our conservatives like Jim Jordan!
We need to consider busting up these companies to help stop censorship in the future when the Democrats regain power. I experienced censorship on Facebook on COVID-19 when I voiced concerns about the recommendations of Anthony Fauci. I never forgot that and I have not returned to Facebook. We as a country need to take steps to prevent future censorship in all types of media since it has become so easy to censor opinions with the use of personal computers and cellphones. We need to open up “the gates” for alternative news organizations that seek fairness and diversity of opinion to keep the legacy media more fair.
No left-wing company, big or small, will ever change their illegal SOP or admit to any wrong doing UNTIL THEY ARE CAUGHT. Then the tapdancing begins, scrambling for damage control and firm insistence on their innocence.
I’m sorry, but I don’t believe much of Big Tech’s apologies regarding the corruption they joined against conservatives, Christians, Republicans or any supporters of the present administration from 2015 on. They are still there. They still censure. They will slide off that fence unto the next side as soon as they feel this administration exposes them.
Mark Zuckerberg admitted blocking Hunter Biden laptop, but he also spent $300 million rigging the drop boxes for phony mail-in ballots.
Wouldn’t call it “shocking” since most people knew exactly what they were doing. I’m actually glad they are admitting it NOW, but likely after consulting with their attorneys about statutes of limitations and could they be charged. And, I’m sure NONE of it will get any major network coverage, so most people won’t find out. And that industry doesn’t want any controls put on them, ha.
Behold, the real tyrants, The real Hitler. Joe Biden and his corrupt administration.
What goes, around comes around, now, if we can just reform the SOCIALIST’S AND COMMUNIST, WE CAN HAVE GOOD OLE AMERICA BACK AGAIN.
Interesting article. When Google started out, their motto was “First, Do No Harm”. Sound familiar? It’s the first rule of the Hippocratic Oath that doctors take. (How doctors reconcile abortion and gender mutilation with the Oath, I will never know. But those are topics for another day.) I enjoy You Tube, but I won’t subscribe until they allow free speech to EVERYONE. Google has strayed far from their idealistic beginnings. One can hardly avoid them, but I try to limit my use as much as I can…
How many other “secret” horrible Biden-cabal wrongs are we going to uncover??? His administration has injured our country more than we will ever know!! It was the people around him who ran the country and they are all still in DC trying to stop Trump. Google is the worst. I no longer even go to Facebook because there are so many lies being posted on that sight. In fact I not longer participate in any social media platforms. They are evil and very much part of what is wrong with our young people today.
Big Brother is always watching….
Maybe I missed it, but I have not heard how they are going to repay all those who were censored, for lost revenues?
Summation: we were ok with and complicit in censoring at the behest of the Deep State UNTIL we got caught; now, we will comply to the First Amendment UNTIL we can go covert AGAIN and bed down with our “allies” (academia, mainstream media, entertainment industry including sports, The Deep State, Unions, Soros, Obama, Biden, Clinton,…).
The biden administration was a typical Democrat machine set to run off every person that disagreed with them.
Biden regime censored the opposition during his phony presidency. Remind me who the real Fascists are….????
Government can always put pressure on corporate entities. No corporation conducts its business without violating some law, somehow and somewhere, inadvertently or otherwise..Government can find a crime and then use the threat of prosecution unless the corporation agrees to do what the government wants done. Our two party system can sometimes result in dredging up some of the unsavory acts of the other party and remind voters that politicians are not always honorable. What might help? Term limits, maybe. It takes politicians a while to make the right contacts and learn how to work the system.
These big tech companies playing politics should be fined out the wazoo for their BS and nonsense. Make them pay hefty fines and compensation to the people they did this to. They make me sick. They’re all liars and their lips are latched firmly to the arse of whoever’s running the show at the moment. We can’t trust anyone in this country…certainly not the government, the media, and these shyster BS-shoveling companies. We need to find the names behind all of this garbage and expose them to the US Citizens. We have a right to know our internal enemies.
The fish rots from the head.
The Stumbling Bumbling Idiot is the biggest slime bucket of them all.
I wish it were a complete and total surrender, but as is this is just a shoring up, indemnification against law suits, and buttoning down the hatches until they consider the political climate favorable to their cause again at which point they will bring it all back with a zeal and vengeance the likes we’ve never seen before. Google needs to be split up into a myriad of little googlets a la Ma Bell, and their individual dossiers on each and every consumer they have compiled over the decades need to be erased. I realize their armies of fine print scribbling lawyers have helped indemnify them for years but no one has read these “agreements” while they are in the hurry of finding things, and no one actually gave true “informed consent” if their their true intent was hidden under piles of legalese, in run on strings of mind numbing clauses.
When tobacco companies were found “wrongdoing” by adding addictive chemicals they were heavily fined. Is that a more egregious violation than censorship? I don’t know, but it sure would be a heavy competitor in my mind. Where are the fines? These hearings are a sham unless these companies have to pay a heavy price for their wrongdoing. They knew what they were being asked to do was wrong and illegal and they did it anyway to earn brownie points with the Biden Administration. Shame on them and they should pay— if nothing else recompense the people whose lives they destroyed.
Big deal.
More “words.”
Forgive me for not getting up.
Hey, b*st*rds, how about you
PAY the people you insulted
and cheated, after profiting
from their success?
This is another lie. They are continuing as before just ask Alex Jones who just tested this. He lasted about 12 before they shut him down so all the lies the republicans are telling about WINNING are just that lies.
This is why the government does not work for the people anymore. I don’t believe anything the government says anymore. The government needs to get smaller! If they would stop spending, balance the budget, and start paying off the debt then we would not have inflation. Inflation is destroying 2/3’s of the population.
A big step forward against blatant and provable censorship. But don’t forget the biased power of their search algorithms. Okay, your account is reinstated. But we simply do not report it in search results. Or we direct 90% of your traffic to other sites with the approved narrative. Or we never include your content in AI-generated answers. There are endless opportunities for tech companies to subtly suppress/bias free speech without an outright ban on particular accounts.
Everything about the Biden Administration stinks on ice!
It would be ironic if the GOP stays in power for a few more years, but realistically it probably won’t happen.
I was kicked off Facebook months ago for violating (communist) Community standards. No example given or any explanation. So much for freedom of speech.
Google took down Alex Jones yesterday. Nothing has changed.
Hey, Jim: Whatever happened to all those biden SARs you were investigating? Hmm….never heard another word about them.
These people that run the media must be rooted out they are working for the Chinese or the globalist either won it’s bad for us.
As a free speech absolutist we need to also reinstate those fired for free speech no matter what side they are on whether it’s Gina Carano or even those who mocked Charlie Kirk. Remember that Charlie Kirk would not have wanted them fired. We must debate those with bad ideas and not silence them. Everybody should be able to have their say without fear of retribution because we are in America.
Yep ohhhh and poor little boohooo jimmy cry baby kimmel wannabe!! Waahhhhhh they took away my free speech!!!
You poor little hypocritical wanna be hollywood elitist pc of SH$& 9manure)!!!!
So, this started being investigated in 2023? And still no one’s been charged. No conviction? No jail time? Just more political smoke and mirrors while both parties drive our country to bankruptcy with continued debt spending. Can no longer pay the interest on 37 Trillion debt. Keep it up, voters! Yeah.
It is very important to engage the left in debate about what free speech means during this however brief time when the right has some authority. Do not just enforce it. Convince all Americans that freedom is the cornerstone of all they hold dear..
So, the pendulum is swinging, and they know it’s going to hurt them. Political prostitutes always go with the polls and power.
Big tech appointed itself to be a God. It is worshipped as one , judging by the usage
Apply to LinkedIn, Facebook Meta too ALL since 2015 legacy Net
OK, so now what…NOTHING!!!