Google should not have waited to acknowledge it was pressured by the Biden administration to block content on its platforms.
Google condemns jawboning now, but it failed to stand up for the rights of its users when it mattered.
FIRE will continue to call on private institutions to stand up for their rights — no matter who is in office.
tech platforms need to lead the way in reestablishing cultural mores around free speech, and not just to get their “get out of jail free” card back. Tech is dominant culturally in a way it wasn’t when the cultural mores around free speech were established, and the most generous interpretation of their actions over the last decade is that they were afraid to assert their power, bowing to the wishes of the loudest voices in the media and in their own companies.
In fact, the best way to avoid partisanship and to be the neutral arbiter all of the platforms say they want to be is to decline to take positions on all issues but one: the importance of free expression. That is the key enabler of finding a path forward on all of those other issues, and is the foundation of a free society. That, in a nutshell, has been Stratechery’s approach to politics, and it has served me well; I think it would scale just as well to the largest companies in the world.
YouTube creators kicked off the platform for “repeated violations of COVID-19 and elections integrity policies” will have an opportunity to “rejoin” in line with revised policies that allow “a wider range of content” on those subjects, its parent Alphabet told the House Judiciary Committee Tuesday.
Issued in response to committee subpoenas in February 2023 and March 2025, the letter from Alphabet’s law firm insists its commitment to free expression is “unwavering and will not bend to political pressure,” while blaming senior Biden administration officials, “including White House officials,” for “unacceptable and wrong” pressure to censor content that doesn’t violate YouTube policies.
From President Biden on down, administration officials “created a political atmosphere that sought to influence the actions of platforms based on their concerns regarding misinformation,” Alphabet said, claiming it “has consistently fought against those efforts on First Amendment grounds.”
The letter insists that “YouTube never had Community Guidelines prohibiting discussion of the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic,” has never operated a paid third-party checking program and “will not empower fact-checkers to take action on or label content across the Company’s services.”
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Many taxpayer funded school districts use Google services, including Madison.