At the height of the COVID pandemic, Alphabet Inc. was permanently banning any YouTube account with videos that deviated from the official government narrative at the time.
As Republicans investigate whether tech companies were compelled by the Biden White House to restrict speech on their platforms, the company sent a letter to the House Judiciary Committee admitting they censored all those accounts under pressure from the Democratic administration.
Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) recently told Jenna Ellis the irony is how wrong the former president's official narrative was.
"They told us it wasn't our money used at that lab in China. It was," he began. "They told us it wasn't gain-of-function research done there. Yes, it was. They told us it didn't come from the lab. They told us the vaccinated couldn't get it. They told us the vaccinated couldn't transmit the virus. They told us masks worked. They told us six-feet social distancing was based on science, and they told us this was the first virus where there was no natural immunity."
Noting accusations that the Trump administration is now pressuring media companies to police speech on television, Alphabet called it "unacceptable and wrong" and said the company "has consistently fought against those efforts on free speech grounds."
The committee is working on legislation that gives victims of government censorship the right to take those officials to court.
"We're going to look into things in the future we could do that are even stronger and more helpful in protecting Americans' First Amendment liberties," Jordan told Ellis.
He says online freedom of speech is under a real threat across the globe. In England, for example, people are going to jail for posting anything remotely controversial.
"It's just a matter of time before the European laws actually infringe on Americans' First Amendment liberties," the congressman warned.
Meta revealed last year that it was doing away with third-party fact-checkers, denounced the Biden administration's pressure tactics, and welcomed more voices onto its platform.
YouTube has not used outside fact-checkers and vowed that it "will not empower fact-checkers to take action on or label content" on the platform.
Alphabet is reportedly creating a path for creators who violated COVID-19 and election integrity policies that are no longer in effect to apply for reinstatement.
