The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is reportedly investigating whether the YouTube platform’s management violated consumer protection laws when it blocked user accounts. Bloomberg Refer to people familiar with the matter.
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The agency, which specializes in antitrust law and consumer protection, will study YouTube’s activities starting in 2025; preparations for litigation are being completed. During the audit, the committee will determine whether YouTube management violated the platform’s own rules when blocking or demoting content; and will also try to answer questions about whether users may have been deceived by the company’s content policies when they signed up on the site and believed they could post certain material — which was then removed and accounts blocked. No charges have been filed and the investigation may be concluded without enforcement action.
YouTube and other social networks have removed content particularly related to the pandemic, as well as content that contains expressions of political stance. In January 2021, the social media accounts of US President Trump, who was about to end his first term, were blocked on a large scale. Four years later, the FTC changed its composition and the agency began operating differently. In February 2025, the commission acknowledged that it could declare social networking platforms to have violated the Consumer Protection Act by stating unfair or misleading terms of service and failing to inform users of blocking rules and appeal rights, according to its version.
In U.S. practice, there are few precedents for applying consumer protection laws and antitrust laws to online platforms to delete certain posts or accounts. Courts have given social media operators broad discretion to remove user content at their own discretion – the role of platform administrators is often likened to that of newspapers making editorial decisions. In 2025, the Los Angeles jury recognized Meta✴ Google and Google are guilty of negligence in the design and operation of their platforms—they are specifically designed to appeal to younger users. In 2019, YouTube settled an FTC investigation that alleged the platform violated children’s online safety laws by collecting children’s information without parental consent. In 2025, the commission announced an investigation into several artificial intelligence chatbot developers, including YouTube’s Alphabet Holdings, for providing services targeted at minors.
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