The U.S. Federal Trade Commission is in the final stages of preparing a potential lawsuit against YouTube over whether the platform violated consumer protection law when it suspended user accounts, according to people familiar with the matter cited by Bloomberg.

The agency has been investigating YouTube’s parent, Alphabet Inc., since last year. The inquiry centers on whether YouTube violated its own stated policies when it banned or demoted content, and whether users were deceived into signing up for the platform believing certain content was permitted, only to have it removed or their accounts suspended later, the people said.

It is unclear which accounts the investigation covers. Bloomberg reported that YouTube has not been accused of wrongdoing and that the probe could conclude without enforcement action.

The FTC’s scrutiny follows a pattern from the platform’s recent history. YouTube and other social media companies suspended Donald Trump’s account after the January 6, 2021 assault on the Capitol; the account was reinstated in 2023. YouTube also removed vaccine- and COVID-19-related content it determined violated its misinformation policies.

FTC Chair Andrew Ferguson has signaled interest in the issue since his time as a minority commissioner, when he argued that major platforms banned Trump “roughly contemporaneously” in 2021 and that companies should be held to the same standard as any business making representations to consumers. “Whatever your policies are, you have to follow them,” Ferguson said at a public appearance in Aspen, Colorado, adding that the agency would examine whether companies’ stated speech policies match their practice.

The investigation is being led by Chris Mufarrige, director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, though some career staff have privately expressed disagreement with filing the case, according to people familiar with internal dynamics. Any settlement would require approval from the agency’s two Republican commissioners, Ferguson and Mark Meador; the FTC currently has no Democratic commissioners after their removal by Trump last year.

Legal precedent for the case is thin, according to Bloomberg. Courts have generally given platforms wide latitude to moderate content under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which the Supreme Court left intact in a 2023 ruling, often comparing platforms’ editorial judgments to those of a newspaper. More recent cases, however, have declined to shield platforms from product liability and negligence claims. A Los Angeles jury earlier this year found Meta and Google negligent in designing platforms that hook children, and a coalition of states last week reached a settlement with Meta of up to $18 billion over similar allegations.

The consumer protection probe adds to a list of pending FTC matters involving Alphabet, which include an investigation into its search advertising practices and a separate inquiry into AI chatbots aimed at teens and children. YouTube settled with the FTC in 2019 over allegations it collected children’s data without parental consent.

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