BANNED: Google’s Bombshell Letter to Congress

In a surprising revelation, Google has offered a major mea culpa, admitting it censored and shadow-banned countless users on YouTube and other platforms it owns.

House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan (OH-4) received a bombshell letter from Google explaining that the Biden Administration pressured the company to ban YouTube accounts that posted content related to the 2020 presidential election as well as COVID-19.

As reported by Fox News:

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, first obtained by Fox News Digital, 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.

The bombshell document details how the Biden Administration directly pressured Google to censor user content:

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.

What happened here is that Congressional oversight – led by Chairman Jim Jordan – pushed Google to acknowledge what many suspected: The account takedowns and censorship weren’t just internal policy enforcement. Pressure came from the Biden Administration. Is this really that surprising, though?

Remember when Mark Zuckerberg essentially admitted the Biden team pressured Facebook to censor posts about the Biden family? We told you how we filed a critical FOIA brief against the Biden Administration to expose this political strong-arming.

Why does that matter? Because these platforms enjoy legal protections – so-called liability shields to protect these providers from being held responsible for what the public posts, etc. And what the government gives, the government can take away, which means the government can lord that power to limit or straight-up pull that protection away – a chilling thought. Companies may feel no choice but to censor users to avoid legal and financial exposure, whether the content actually breaks the platform’s rules or not. This is very dangerous, and the ACLJ takes it very seriously.

So this isn’t some altruistic move on Google’s part. It’s nice that they’re unbanning certain blocked accounts, but the fact still remains that they only did so with their tails between their legs after getting called out. Let that serve as a reminder that the balance between private platform policy and government influence matters exponentially when it comes to free speech online.

ACLJ Senior Counsel CeCe Heil joined us on the broadcast to give an update on a major case we’re fighting to defend the free speech of lifesaving pro-life volunteers. Our client, a sidewalk counselor, had a restraining order filed against him after peacefully speaking outside an abortion clinic. However, the order did more than just restrict proximity: The court applied a workplace-violence restraining order that included extreme restrictions, such as a 100-yard buffer and, astonishingly, a multi-year ban on owning firearms. Just to be clear, nowhere did the facts of the case ever even suggest a gun was involved.

This is an alarming example of how creative legal maneuvers can end up curbing free speech and even stripping unrelated constitutional rights. When courts or officials start tying unrelated penalties to speech, it’s a dangerous precedent.

Today’s Sekulow broadcast included more reaction to this surprising revelation by Google, confirming what we long suspected to be true. We also gave an update on a twisted ruling in a California case in which we’re defending the free speech of a pro-life advocate. And we discussed the news that the Secret Service may investigate whether malfunctioning escalators and teleprompters were technical glitches or intentional attempts to sabotage President Trump’s U.N. address. 

Watch the full broadcast below: