Big Tech companies love playing word games when they get hauled before Congress.
But one Senator wasn't buying the deflection.
And Ted Cruz backed Google into one corner over a bad mistake that left the company squirming.
Ted Cruz puts Google executive on blast over election censorship
Senator Ted Cruz just exposed what might be the most hypocritical censorship scandal in Big Tech history.
Duringa Senate Commerce Committee hearing, Cruz confronted Google's top Washington policy executive about a video that YouTube deleted and gave the creator a strike for – because it showed both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump making claims about election fraud.¹
"YouTube deleted it, blocked it and gave the creator a strike, a step toward deleting his entire channel," Cruz said during the "Shut Your App: How Uncle Sam Jawboned Big Tech Into Silencing Americans, Part II" hearing on October 29.²
The video showed both presidential candidates from different parties making the exact same type of claims about election integrity.
But YouTube only cracked down on content critical of one election result.
Cruz showed screenshots of the censored content that displayed Clinton's 2016 election fraud claims alongside Trump's 2020 statements.
"Why would you remove a journalist's record of the claims of election fraud from both Democrats and Republicans?" Cruz demanded.³
Google's Vice President for Government Affairs and Public Policy Markham Erickson tried deflecting to general policies about "relevant and useful information" for voters.
Cruz wasn't having it.
He cut Erickson off and got straight to the point – Google censored a video documenting election fraud claims from both parties, then reversed course and simply demonetized it instead.
The Texas Senator asked point-blank if Google regretted its censorship decisions.
Erickson's response exposed just how deep the problem goes.
Google admits to "mistakes" but won't name a single one
"We make mistakes," Erickson finally admitted after Cruz pressed him.⁴
But when Cruz asked him to name one specific mistake, Erickson couldn't do it.
"Name one," Cruz challenged.⁵
Erickson dodged again, refusing to identify any specific error in judgment.
Cruz asked a second time: "Like you're saying, was this a mistake? Yes or no?"⁶
Still no direct answer.
Erickson fell back on explaining how YouTube's "trust and integrity teams" made independent decisions after states certified the 2020 election results.⁷
Translation: Google hid behind bureaucratic process to avoid admitting they got it wrong.
Cruz just exposed exactly what Google does when caught red-handed – admit mistakes exist in theory while refusing to acknowledge any specific failure.
Cruz exposed the absurdity of Google's position during the heated exchange.
"Hold on a second. You're taking the position that if anyone argues there's fraud, if anyone lays out claims, if anyone lays out evidence, the omnipotent Google in the sky will say, 'No, you stupid citizens. You don't get to hear this.' Is that your position?" Cruz asked.⁸
"Respectfully, no, Mr. Chairman," Erickson responded.⁹
But the evidence tells a different story.
Hillary Clinton got a free pass while Trump supporters got the ban hammer
Here's what makes this censorship scandal particularly damaging.
Hillary Clinton spent years claiming the 2016 election was stolen from her.
She called Trump an "illegitimate president" in a September 2019 CBS News interview, saying "he knows" about "the many varying tactics they used, from voter suppression and voter purging to hacking to the false stories."¹⁰
In 2020, Clinton told The Atlantic the 2016 election "was not on the level" and insisted "we still don't know what really happened."¹¹
She even told an audience in 2019, "You can run the best campaign, you can even become the nominee, and you can have the election stolen from you."¹²
YouTube never deleted videos of Clinton making these claims.
But when Trump questioned the 2020 election results, YouTube implemented a blanket policy in December 2020 removing content that advanced claims of "widespread fraud, errors, or glitches."¹³
The platform removed tens of thousands of videos under this policy before reversing course in June 2023 – conveniently timed ahead of the 2024 election cycle.¹⁴
Even then, YouTube initially removed and struck videos that simply documented both parties making similar claims.
Google already admitted in September 2025 that the Biden administration pressured them to censor content about COVID-19 and the 2020 election, acknowledging their actions were "well-intentioned" but came "at the expense of public debate."¹⁵
Now Cruz has exposed another layer to this censorship operation.
The hearing demonstrated what conservatives have known for years – Big Tech applies its "community standards" selectively based on politics, not principles.
When Democrats cry election fraud, that's legitimate political speech.
When Republicans raise the same concerns, that's dangerous misinformation requiring immediate censorship.
Cruz's questioning forced Erickson to dance around this obvious double standard without ever directly addressing it.
The Google executive's inability to name a single specific mistake while admitting mistakes were made tells you everything about where the company really stands.
They're not sorry they censored conservatives.
They're sorry Ted Cruz dragged them onto Capitol Hill and made them squirm in front of cameras while refusing to defend the indefensible.
Google spent years building the perfect censorship machine – one that lets Democrats cry "stolen election" while Republicans get deleted for asking questions about ballot counting.
Now that machine is breaking down under scrutiny.
And the executives running it can't even pretend anymore that the bias wasn't intentional from the start.
¹ Tyler Durden, "Google Executive Admits Company Made 'Mistakes' While Handling Complaints Of Election Fraud," Zero Hedge, October 30, 2025.
² "New Time and Witness Update: Part II of Shut Your App: How Uncle Sam Jawboned Big Tech Into Silencing Americans," U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, October 29, 2025.
³ Tyler Durden, "Google Executive Admits Company Made 'Mistakes' While Handling Complaints Of Election Fraud," Zero Hedge, October 30, 2025.
⁴ Ibid.
⁵ Ibid.
⁶ Ibid.
⁷ Ibid.
⁸ "Ted Cruz Puts Google Executive On Blast To His Face For Censoring Conservatives," The Daily Caller, October 29, 2025.
⁹ Ibid.
¹⁰ "Hillary Clinton: Trump is an 'illegitimate president,'" The Washington Post, September 26, 2019.
¹¹ "Hillary Clinton Maintains 2016 Election 'Was Not On the Level': 'We Still Don't Know What Really Happened,'" Yahoo News, October 9, 2020.
¹² "Can we compare Republicans' 2020 voter fraud claims with what Clinton said about the 2016 election?" PolitiFact, May 31, 2024.
¹³ "An update on our approach to US election misinformation," YouTube Blog, June 2, 2023.
¹⁴ "YouTube will stop removing false claims about 2020 election fraud," CNBC, June 2, 2023.
¹⁵ "Google admits to censorship pushed by Biden administration and invites back banned users," The Washington Times, September 24, 2025.
