YouTube announced it will restore thousands of channels that were previously banned for violating its COVID-19 and election integrity policies[^1]. This decision came in a 28-page letter from Alphabet to House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan on September 23, 2025[^7].

The company acknowledged that Biden administration officials had pressured YouTube to remove content "that did not violate its policies," which Alphabet called "unacceptable and wrong"[^1][^7]. YouTube's current guidelines now permit a "wider range of content" regarding COVID-19 and elections[^1].

Notable figures who could return include Dan Bongino (now FBI Deputy Director), White House counterterrorism chief Sebastian Gorka, and others who were banned for discussing COVID-19 or election claims[^14]. The platform will offer terminated creators a process to rejoin if they were banned for violating policies that are no longer in effect[^7].

As part of this change, YouTube will also ban the use of official fact-checkers on its platform, instead launching a feature similar to X's "Community Notes" that allows users to provide context on videos[^7].

[^1]: Ars Technica - YouTube will restore channels banned for COVID and election misinformation

[^7]: Deseret News - YouTube restores accounts that were censored over COVID-19 and 2020 election claims

[^14]: Washington Examiner - YouTube content creators no longer banned over political speech

top 19 comments

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[–] 34 points 1 year ago (11 children)

I'm having a hard time believing that the Biden administration was some tyrannical anti-free speech censorship regime (can you imagine?). I remember the White House wanting a meeting with the social media platform owners at the time to discuss concerns of COVID misinformation that was literally killing people, and they didn't say anything about being forced to until Trump won the election. This stinks of shitty lip service to the current administration.

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  • [–] 16 points 1 year ago (8 children)

    It's not lip service. The large platforms are now the official propaganda arm of fascism.

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  • [+] -10 points 1 year ago (6 children)
  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    they've been found? by who?

    the owners of large platforms and their right to moderate their communities has little to do with "democrat propaganda".

    Misinformation gets people hurt, YouTube at the time didn't want their users getting hurt.

    now that the new administration is here, they are removing these policies to allow even more propaganda back onto their platform.

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    [–] 17 points 1 year ago (2 children)
  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago

    "All right ladies and gentlemen: This is deadly serious. I need you all to make suggestions for how we can make YouTube even worse. I know we've already picked the low hanging fruit. Our desktop experience is poorer than it's ever been, user comments are horrendous, and you've all done great and terrible work, but... Now I need the really disastrous options so we can more smoothly become an integral part of the fascist machine of our new glorious owners."

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago (3 children)
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    [–] 3 points 1 year ago

    I like Peertube

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago

    Didn't Dan Bongino quit the FBI? And if he stuck his balls in a wood chipper and stayed, is the deputy director of the FBI allowed to run a podcast? Surely that's some kind of gaping security anus?

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago
    11 comments in c/technology@lemmy.ml view that post
    [–] 12 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

    The company acknowledged that Biden administration officials had pressured YouTube to remove content “that did not violate its policies,”

    yeah and what prevents them from doing it again for any reason, for any party for anybody.

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  • [–] 11 points 1 year ago

    Translation: People pay us to push propaganda that hurts people. The government told us to stop and that hurts our pocketbook!

    Medical misinformation is not political speech. Fuck everyone who made it this way.

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  • [–] 7 points 1 year ago

    As long as they make sure not to say any mean words about Charlie Kirk or the rest of the administration.

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  • [–] 6 points 1 year ago

    Here come the flat earthers again.

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  • Bending the knee for the fascists. Despicable

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  • Thank god YouTube is finally making some good changes. Clearly dangerous misinformation = good and bad words = bad.

    This is jokes, WTF YouTube

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  • [–] 9 points 1 year ago (4 children)

    OK, now get rid of all the bullshit restrictions on firearms videos.

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  • [–] 8 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    And on no-no words like r*pe. I wanna watch court cases to learn something but lawtube is getting fucked by these inconsistent restrictions. I get that kids shouldn't watch everything but banning words to force this is not working at all. See Roblox or the countless Minecraft YouTubers involved in 'bad things'.

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  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    This one has really surprised me. I'm not sure when this became so widespread, I guess because of tiktok? I feel like almost every channel I watch the advertiser unfriendly words are censored or are substituted with unalived or something. Pretty unfortunate.

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  • And it's not even like it does anything. People who think it's important to talk about the topic regardless will just replace the word. Doesn't take a genius to understand that this does not remedy the heaviness of the topic in any way, so essentially it just makes it sound like explaining world war 2 in Mickey mouse language. It makes a joke out of the topic, that's what it does. YouTube is making a joke out of those topics.

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  • 4 comments in c/ghazi@lemmy.blahaj.zone view that post
    [–] 20 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    Love to see that they are being honest about their intentions.

    Move to peertube 🙂

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Oh boy I can’t wait to watch my favourite channels videos on peertube like Technology Connections, Jay and Mark, hbomberguy, Captain Disillusion, Shaun, or Stand-up Maths

    Oh wait

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  • [–] 9 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

    God forbid YouTube becomes biased toward factual information.

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  • 2 comments in c/fediverse_vs_disinfo@lemmy.dbzer0.com view that post

    Not surprising under a Nazi regime.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago

    So, this is what happen when a criminal win the election. I see.

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