> When the White House called up Twitter in the early morning hours of September 9, 2019, officials had what they believed was a serious issue to report: Famous model Chrissy Teigen had just called President Donald Trump “a pussy ass bitch” on Twitter — and the White House wanted the tweet to come down.
> The Trump administration and its allied Republicans in Congress routinely asked Twitter to take down posts they objected to — the exact behavior that they’re claiming makes President Biden, the Democrats, and Twitter complicit in an anti-free speech conspiracy to muzzle conservatives online.
And the Trump administration has leapfrogged all of the 'asking' on 1st amendment issues -- they're actively suing news stations, entering shake-down agreements with colleges about what they're allowed to teach, deporting green card holders for their political opinions, cancelling already-awarded research grants based purely on the topic being studied ... anyone pretending like this is remotely comparable to anything that happened under Biden isn't a serious person.
https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/supreme-court-rules-in-...
https://www.scotusblog.com/2024/06/justices-side-with-biden-...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murthy_v._Missouri
(Nor was it illegal when the Trump administration did the same thing. https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/elon-tru...)
> When the White House called up Twitter in the early morning hours of September 9, 2019, officials had what they believed was a serious issue to report: Famous model Chrissy Teigen had just called President Donald Trump “a pussy ass bitch” on Twitter — and the White House wanted the tweet to come down.
> The Trump administration and its allied Republicans in Congress routinely asked Twitter to take down posts they objected to — the exact behavior that they’re claiming makes President Biden, the Democrats, and Twitter complicit in an anti-free speech conspiracy to muzzle conservatives online.
Asking is legal. Punishing non-compliance is not.