Administration officials, including Joe Biden, “created a political atmosphere that sought to influence the actions of platforms based on their concerns regarding misinformation,” the letter said. Alphabet added, in something of a mea not-so-maxima culpa, that “it is unacceptable and wrong when any government, including the Biden administration, attempts to dictate how the company moderates content.”

Pressuring private social-media companies to crack down on views the government doesn’t like is much like the pass-through censorship that shut down Jimmy Kimmel. The left’s conviction that Covid “science” about preventive measures was a inviolable truth doesn’t excuse the coercion.

The Biden arm-twisting was in one sense more insidious because it stayed out of public view. Perhaps the White House had a guilty conscience, though more likely it didn’t want voters to know. Nor does the fact that some big tech companies may have been happy to shut down Covid content at the request of their ideological allies in the White House soften the abuse of power.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg wrote his own letter to Mr. Jordan and the Judiciary Committee in August 2024, admitting that the Biden Administration “repeatedly pressured” Facebook to shut down “certain COVID-19 content including humor and satire.” Mr. Zuckerberg told podcaster Joe Rogan that Biden officials “would call up our team and, like, scream at them and curse” to get them to take down information.

A 2023 Judiciary Committee staff report noted that the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) had also “facilitated the censorship of Americans directly and through third-party intermediaries.” By 2020 CISA was flagging posts for “disinformation.” After a lawsuit was filed, the report notes, the content moderation was transferred to a CISA-funded nonprofit to evade the federal censorship rap.

That Mr. Trump is more open about trying to stifle his opponents is no absolution. But his critics on the left haven’t had a moment of public reflection about their own censorship. Progressives intimidated companies into believing that if they failed to toe the line on certain issues, enforcement could follow.

Alphabet’s letter to Judiciary is notable for its commitment that the company “has not and will not empower fact checkers to take action on or label content across the Company’s services.” That’s good to hear, but Google would have done better if its accounting had come before the electoral winds shifted. The company’s letter is an admirable statement of principles. Let’s hope it sticks.