YouTube’s decision to pay $24.5 million to settle Donald Trump’s lawsuit over his 2021 account suspension is another in a marching line of payouts that signal that content moderation is entering a new, more cautious era.
The Alphabet-owned platform reached the deal after Trump alleged that deplatforming him in the wake of the January 6 Capitol riot violated his First Amendment rights. Most of the money is earmarked for a trust funding construction of a $200 million White House ballroom, with the rest divided among co-plaintiffs that include the American Conservative Union and several conservative commentators.
A New Front in Platform Risk
While the settlement doesn’t admit liability or require YouTube to alter its policies, it comes in the wake of similar payouts from Meta, X, Disney’s ABC, and Paramount’s CBS News. Collectively, Trump has pulled in nearly $90 million from such settlements, much of it directed to his presidential library.
The cumulative effect is a warning to online platforms that moderation is no longer an internal policy decision. Trump sought a ruling that Section 230, the legal shield protecting tech firms from liability over user-generated content, was unconstitutional. That request wasn’t granted, but the attempt underscores how vulnerable the shield could become in the courtroom or on Capitol Hill.
Soft Regulation Through Settlements
Even absent a landmark court ruling, settlements of this size function as de facto soft regulation. Tech companies will have to change their moderation policies to minimize litigation risk. Legal experts note that if platforms can be hit with multimillion-dollar payouts over takedowns or bans, risk-averse executives are likely to lean on more conservative enforcement.
That could mean over-moderating borderline content, narrowing the scope of what qualifies as “public interest,” or putting tighter controls on how recommendation algorithms surface controversial material. As one policy analyst put it, “The cost of getting moderation wrong just went up.”
Beyond Big Tech
The ripple effects extend beyond Silicon Valley’s largest players. Mid-tier platforms like Twitch, Discord, and Substack, along with AI companies that filter prompts and outputs, could find themselves pulled into similar disputes. Startups and smaller firms without the legal depth of Google or Meta, may be forced to adopt strict policies to avoid the threat of expensive lawsuits.
The Moderation Crossroads
YouTube has already shifted its stance on sensitive content, loosening some enforcement for material deemed to have public value1. Yet the Trump settlement creates a counter-pressure: a heightened awareness that every takedown or algorithmic down-rank could be framed as suppression with legal consequences.
The result is a precarious balance. Platforms may relax certain political restrictions to avoid accusations of bias, while simultaneously tightening guardrails elsewhere to head off lawsuits, and then there’s their advertisers to consider. The recent Mastercard/Steam adult content controversy is an example of how some advertisers expect conservative content to avoid controversy. What will emerge is not clear, but a climate of moderation by risk management is settling in.
As Trump racks up settlements across the media landscape, the message is unmistakable: online speech rules are no longer written solely in trust-and-safety offices in Silicon Valley. They are being renegotiated in courts and settlements, setting precedents for the digital future.
- Youtube will be allowing content that might otherwise violate guidelines, such as misinformation or hate speech, to remain online if the value for free expression is deemed to outweigh the risk of harm.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/09/technology/youtube-videos-content-moderation.html ↩︎