Recently, I wrote a column about Meta’s restoration of free speech protections after the company admitted to censoring users on platforms like Facebook. The company also revealed that it was pressured by the Biden Administration to conduct such censorship. Now, Google has taken the same step in restoring a number of YouTube accounts and pledging to show greater respect for free speech.
Google made the disclosure in a letter to House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH):
“Reflecting the Company’s commitment to free expression, 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if the company terminated their channels for repeated violations of COVID-19 and elections integrity policies that are no longer in effect.”
This is another major victory for free speech. Google specifically acknowledged past political censorship and stated that it “values conservative voices on its platform.”
The company, for the first time, admitted that it yielded to comprehensive pressure from the Biden Administration to censor Americans. It acknowledged that the Biden censorship pressure was “unacceptable and wrong” and pledged to resist such pressure in the future.
Meta has substantially reduced censorship by replicating the approach of Elon Musk at X. These changes are a testament to Musk’s legacy in the restoration of free speech on social media. As I previously noted, we need companies like Facebook and Google. These are companies that are big enough to stand up to the European Union (EU) and its unrelenting campaign against free speech.
The censorship on Google and YouTube had a harmful impact beyond the loss of free speech. It suppressed opposing views on Covid policies from the efficacy of masks to the need to shutdown our schools.
The very figures claiming to battle “disinformation” were suppressing opposing views that have now been vindicated as credible. It was not only the lab theory. In my recent book, I discuss how signatories of the Great Barrington Declaration were fired or disciplined by their schools or associations for questioning COVID-19 policies.
Some experts questioned the efficacy of surgical masks, the scientific support for the six-foot rule and the necessity of shutting down schools. The government has now admitted that many of these objections were valid and that it did not have hard science to support some of the policies. While other allies in the West did not shut down their schools, we never had any substantive debate due to the efforts of this alliance of academic, media and government figures.
Not only did millions die from the pandemic, but the United States is still struggling with the educational and mental health consequences of shutting down all our public schools. That is the true cost of censorship when the government works with the media to stifle scientific debate and public disclosures.
The disclosure is also a blow to many Democratic members of Congress who long attacked witnesses, including myself, who testified against the coordinated censorship by corporate and government officials. Before the release of the Twitter files, members insisted that there was no evidence of such coordination. Some still deny such coordination despite multiple companies now confirming it.
The greatest challenge, however, still lies ahead for these companies. The EU remains the greatest threat to free speech facing Americans. After Musk purchased X with a pledge to restore free speech, figures like former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton demanded that the EU use its infamous Digital Services Act to force X to censor Americans.
The EU has threatened Musk with confiscatory fines that could surpass $1 billion, according to The New York Times.
The Trump administration has warned the EU about its efforts to censor Americans. Meta and Google can now join X in creating a formidable corporate alliance for free speech. For the first time, the free speech community might have a coalition of government and corporate allies that could stand up to the EU.
There will likely remain a degree of mistrust from the free speech community towards these companies after years of censorship and stonewalling. However, we also need to accept our allies where and when we can find them. Free speech is in a free fall in Europe and many on the left are encouraging similar censorship laws for the United States. We need these companies and should support them as they take meaningful actions in favor of free speech.
So bravo, Google, bravo.
Here is the full letter: Google Letter
This site makes today’s game unbeatable! Soundmap Artists Guesser
Alphabet/Youtube shut down the laptop from hell and deplatformed conservatives and truth tellers in advance of the 2020 election. This was at the behest of the FBI and other security and biosecurity state operatives during the Trump administration. The rot runs deep and, unless cleaned out, will return with a vengeance when the Democrats once again win the Presidency. A self serving letter that lays all sins at the door of the Biden administration misses a critical part of what happened.
It’s great that they admitted to unconstitutional censorship in coordination with the Biden Administration, long after the fact, and without any repercussions.
Where do conservatives go to recover the revenue they were denied?
What about the elections that were tipped because conservatives were censored from speaking the truth?
What’s to stop Democrat-controlled social media from resuming censorship once the next Democrat is elected president? Were it not for Elon Musk buying Twitter just so conservatives could communicate their beliefs, there would be no competing pressure for the rest of social media to open up their platforms for free speech.
Social media either acts like a telephone company or public square, providing a line of communication but staying completely out of conversations, or it acts like a publisher, selecting what speech to publish.
It is in the public interest to ensure an uncensored digital public square exists.
What I find disgraceful is how Google was able to hide while cleaning up all of the worst examples of Google doing as the Biden Admin ‘forced’ them to do.
Is there any reason why we should trust these companies? Hmmm. . .
Just HOW could the Biden administration “force” Google or any other social media platform to do anything? Just more Turley slop to try to set-off Trump’s actual, open threat to revoke ABC’s broadcast license because his ego can’t handle being mocked by Jimmy Kimmel, and his actual silencing of Steven Colbert and threats against Jimmy Fallon and Seth Meyers. AND, what was the subject of the material that wass allegedly “censored”? Misinformation about COVID and lies about “election integrity”–i.e., The Big Lie.
^^^some more slop from chump gigi.
Professor Turley, will Google have to financially consider compensating all the de-platformed users for loss of reach and revenue? Hugh Hewitt brought this up the other day and is it a valid claim they can make?
Sounds like congress needs to pass the “Google UNTRUST Act!”
Activist infowarriors (including public officeholders, their political staffs and media allies) know that censorship is the weaker of their two strategies to shape opinion — crafty false narratives are superior. And, in the minds of many ardent “free speech absolutists”, calculated lies have equal legal standing with truth under the 1st Amendment.
If fact, the one-sided, unbalanced fight against censorship arguing for unfettered free speech is music to the ears of these manipulative infowarriors. Their delight can be summarized as “We’ll gladly forego censorship if you’ll let our alternate truths flourish.”
Pea brain in California
The same idiots that you seem to think swallow every lie thats told, are the ones you say are competent to be jurists in complex litigation.
More tort!!!
pbinca is tiresome and unintelligent. The only reason he can post his crap is because our host is a “free speech absolutist”, otherwise pbinca would be SOL in CAL and would have to troll on Reddit. Good luck with that
So Alphabet only stands up for free speech after the threat has passed…..
Make no mistake, if Elon had not bought Twitter and Kamala Harris was elected president, the 1984 censorship regime would still be in full force. The Big Tech tyrants can pretend all they like that it was Biden admin pressure that caused their mass censorship and thought control, but we all know they have a shared leftist ideology, so it didn’t take much arm-twisting to get them to do the precise bidding of the Democrat regime. Right now, they’re pretending to be fair and balanced because they fear what the Trump administration could do to their businesses, antitrust or otherwise.
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