YouTube will allow creators whose accounts were terminated for repeated violations of COVID-19 and election integrity policies to rejoin the platform, according to a letter that YouTube parent company Alphabet sent to Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) on Tuesday.
“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if the Company terminated their channels for repeated violations of COVID-19 and elections integrity policies that are no longer in effect,” Alphabet’s legal counsel Daniel F. Donovan wrote. “YouTube values conservative voices on its platform and recognizes that these creators have extensive reach and play an important role in civic discourse.”
This letter was a response to a subpoena from Rep. Jordan, who sought to investigate if the Biden-Harris administration had “coerced or colluded” with companies like Alphabet to censor speech.
At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, many social platforms like YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter enacted policies to ban the spread of medical misinformation about the virus and vaccines. For example, YouTube disallowed content saying that vaccines can cause cancer, a false claim which is not supported by scientific research.
