NEW: Tech Giants Cave, Admit To Systematic Censorship Of Right-Wing Content

Tech companies long accused of censorship by conservatives began to cave on Tuesday, with Google offering to reinstate the accounts of individuals banned during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Many of the accounts posted content related to the pandemic and vaccines, according to U.S. House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan (R-OH), who stated that he has reached an agreement that will restore freedom of speech to dissidents who were silenced under the Biden administration.

The new policy by Google and its parent company, Alphabet, has the potential to affect members of the Trump administration who previously hosted their own podcasts and other online programs, including FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino, House counterterrorism chief Sebastian Gorka, and “War Room” podcast host Steve Bannon, all of whom were banned for posting pandemic or election-related content.

“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if the company terminated their channels for repeated violations of COVID-19 and elections integrity policies that are no longer in effect,” the lawyer representing Google wrote to Fox News.

Bongino, a former U.S. Secret Service agent, operated his show on both Rumble and YouTube but ended it when he joined the administration. He attributed a decline in his viewership to a permanent ban he received from YouTube, which is owned by Google. A company spokesperson at the time accused Bongino of spreading false information about COVID-19 and its origins.

A document from Google’s attorney stresses that YouTube “values conservative voices on its platform” and admits that the creators “have extensive reach and play an important role in civic discourse.”

Inside the five-page document is an explanation from Google about the pressure that executives received from the Biden administration as officials pushed the tech giant to remove conservative accounts they accused of spreading misinformation. The lawyer for Google maintained that the company ultimately censored individuals in alignment with the company’s own standards, not those of Biden, but has since rolled back those regulations.

“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 shift by Google and YouTube follows one by Facebook and parent company Meta, which last year shifted toward more open political discourse on its social media platform after years of suppression following the 2020 election. Both corporations were under pressure from Jordan and the Judiciary Committee, which had launched an investigation into their activity and communications with the Biden administration.