Google CEO Sundar Pichai addresses a crowd during Google’s annual I/O developers conference in Mountain View, Calif., on May 20, 2025. (CAMILLE COHEN/AFP via Getty Images)
Bongino ended his conservative radio show, which livestreamed on Rumble, when he joined the administration this year. He has attributed his popularity on that platform to permanently losing his YouTube account in 2022. YouTube permanently banned Bongino, who had one of the most followed accounts on the platform, for spreading what it said was COVID-19 misinformation about masks.
The document from Google also noted that YouTube "values conservative voices on its platform" and acknowledged that the creators "have extensive reach and play an important role in civic discourse."
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.
The administration "created a political atmosphere that sought to influence the actions of platforms based on their concerns regarding misinformation," the lawyer added.
Fox News Digital reached out to Google for comment.
Google's revelations came in response to a yearslong Republican-led investigation by the committee into big tech companies, including Google, that censored and suppressed content on their platforms related to COVID-19, the 2020 election and Hunter Biden.
YouTube’s posture follows Meta similarly shifting last year toward denouncing the Biden administration’s pressure tactics and welcoming more voices onto its platform.
Meta revealed at the time that it was doing away with third-party fact-checkers. 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.
Parallel to the congressional investigations was a lawsuit brought by two Republican attorneys general over social media censorship. Discovery in that case largely mirrored what the committee uncovered. The Supreme Court ultimately did not decide on the merits of the case, Murthy v. Missouri, and instead found that the plaintiffs lacked standing to bring it. But the lower courts had largely sided with the plaintiffs, including a judge who found the federal government seemed to have "assumed a role similar to an Orwellian ‘Ministry of Truth.'"
The high court’s decision disappointed Republicans, who had hoped for a landmark ruling that social media companies’ censorship practices violate the First Amendment. The case also explored jawboning, which involves the government pressuring private companies to censor their speech.
Jimmy Kimmel, host of "Jimmy Kimmel Live!," speaks at the Disney Advertising Upfront on May 13, 2025, at North Javits in New York City. (Michael Le Brecht/Disney via Getty Images)
The term jawboning has resurfaced in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s death, after ABC late-night host Jimmy Kimmel suggested on his show that the suspect Tyler Robinson was a member of the "MAGA gang." Authorities have said Robinson felt Kirk spread hate and that he engraved his bullet casings with gamer-inspired antifascist messaging.
Kimmel also repeatedly expressed sympathies for Kirk’s family and condemned the shooting. Still, ABC and owners of its affiliate stations suspended Kimmel’s show. ABC lifted its suspension beginning Tuesday, but one of the affiliate owners, Sinclair Broadcast Group, said it will continue to replace Kimmel with other programming.
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Concerns with jawboning arose because Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr made a veiled threat about Kimmel’s remarks ahead of ABC pulling him off air. The FCC has regulatory authority over broadcasting networks, including ABC, but still must abide by the First Amendment.
"Frankly, when you see stuff like this, I mean, we can do this the easy way, or the hard way," Carr told conservative podcaster Benny Johnson. "These companies can find ways to change conduct, to take action, frankly, on Kimmel, or there’s going to be additional work for the FCC ahead."
Ashley Oliver is a reporter for Fox News Digital and FOX Business, covering the Justice Department and legal affairs. Email story tips to ashley.oliver@fox.com.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/google-reinstate-banned-youtube-accounts-censored-political-speech