YouTube restores conservative accounts previously banned for spreading misinformation.

YouTube is reinstating the accounts of conservative creators previously banned from the platform for spreading misinformation, after facing a months-long investigation by the House Judiciary Committee.

In a five-page letter sent to the committee’s chair Jim Jordan, YouTube’s parent company Alphabet said the platform had removed said accounts due to pressure from Biden administration officials in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, and that it would now commit further to promoting political debate on the site.

Not long after the announcement, divisive conservative talking heads Alex Jones and Nick Fuentes attempted to create new YouTube accounts, but were once again banned under the platform’s Terms of Service. YouTube clarified that it will soon open a pilot program for reinstating terminated accounts, so previously banned creators will have to wait to return under new channels.

Conservative Figures Banned for Misinformation

Many accounts ran by conservative figures were banned for violating platform policies on misinformation, including those of Sebastian Gorka, Dan Bongino, Steve Bannon, and Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s nonprofit Children’s Health Defense. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., as the current head of the Department of Health and Human Services, has most recently come under fire for promoting unfounded claims on the cause of autism and undermining vaccine science. Bannon, former chief strategist for the Trump campaign and current ally, recently pled guilty to defrauding donors in a campaign to build a border wall. Bongino is now the deputy director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, while Gorka is the White House counterterrorism chief.

YouTube Responds to Political Pressures

The letter seems to claim the Biden administration “created a political atmosphere” that forced the platform to remove content and accounts that they wouldn’t have otherwise removed under existing content moderation policies, even though YouTube had revised its policies in response to a wave of COVID-19 conspiracy theories and anti-vaccination sentiment at the time — many other platforms joined their efforts. In a press release issued shortly after, the House Judiciary Committee equated this to an admittance of political censorship. In 2024, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg made similar claims against the administration after facing intense criticism for Facebook’s handling of medical misinformation.

“The company is committed to doing its part to continue to keep the digital ecosystem safe, reliable, and open to free expression,” wrote Alphabet. “It is unacceptable and wrong when any government, including the Biden administration, attempts to dictate how [Alphabet] moderates content.”