During President Joe Biden's term, conservatives worried about the relationship between Big Tech and the Biden Administration. Now we have proof that there was reason to be concerned.
On September 23, the House Judiciary Committee released a report confirming suspicions that the Biden Administration pressured Google to censor Americans. This is damning news for Democrats and free speech advocates, something that should be a non-partisan issue, but has become a lightning rod for the left and right since Charlie Kirk was shot and killed.
Alphabet Inc., the parent holding company of Google and YouTube, revealed in a letter to House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan that the Biden administration urged YouTube to remove videos on COVID-19 and elections, even when they did not violate platform rules.
Alphabet admitted that such pressure from the Biden Administration was "unacceptable" and they committed, going forward, to reinstate YouTube accounts that had been banned due to political speech. YouTube also stated that it would stop using third-party fact-checkers.
This resulted from a year-long Republican-led investigation into the relationship between the Biden Administration and Big Tech.
The news that a Democratic president was pressuring Google and YouTube to censor Americans with differing views on significant issues seems like a pretty big deal to me. Google is a massive platform with extraordinary influence. YouTube has 2.5 billion users. Can you imagine if the Trump Administration was revealed to have pressured two of the world's most influential websites into suppressing information or banning Americans with opposing views?
Of course, some news sites have covered this story, but given how much the issue of free speech has been in the news, I'm surprised I haven't seen more about this. I did a quick search on The New York Times website and found just one story in the "Technology" section of the paper about this revelation. But this story isn't just about technology. It's a story about free speech, a Democrat administration, and Big Tech.
But I counted at least 23 stories in The New York Times about Jimmy Kimmel in just the last several days alone. The late-night talk show host was, of course, suspended briefly after he said that Charlie Kirk's alleged assassin was affiliated with MAGA Republicans. There has been much outcry over Kimmel's comments, whether or not Disney received pressure from the Federal Communications Commission chair, and the importance of free speech. That's all well and good, but where's the outcry over Big Tech, free speech, and the Biden Administration?
It often feels like free speech is essential only if it goes in one direction, at least when it comes to mainstream media coverage.
In either case, this is yet another example of where conservatives were right all along that the Biden Administration was pressuring Big Tech to censor Americans during a difficult time in our nation's history.
Last August, Mark Zuckerberg, Meta's CEO, admitted nearly the same thing. In a letter to the House Judiciary Committee about Facebook, a platform with about 3 billion users, Zuckerberg said that the Biden Administration "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."
Zuckerberg said that Facebook changed COVID-19 content and regretted giving in to the administration's pressure to censor information. He, too, promised never to give in again.
This also means that while Zuckerberg did admit that censorship like this was wrong, the rest of Big Tech, including Google and YouTube, were not willing to speak up yet, even though they were also being investigated and experiencing the same issues.
No government—Trump or Biden's—should use their power in office to dampen the free speech rights of other Americans. Americans have the right to know information and express themselves through platforms like YouTube, Facebook, or Google. The Biden Administration interfered with that right. The Trump Administration would be called out for doing the same.
