The federal government was literally pressuring YouTube to remove certain COVID content that did not violate its policies. It's said explicitly in the story.

What I'm trying to get at is it's possible to stifle people's freedom of expression without literally blocking them from every platform. Threatening their livelihood. Threatening their home. Kicking them off these core social media networks. All of these things are "silencing". And we should be wary of doing that for things we simply disagree about.

This is such an important idea. I'm afraid that most people do not think beyond "bad opinions should be legally suppressed" and unfortunately that includes many of the purported guardians of our social morals.

Did they say they were going to put YouTube out of business? The FCC threatened to take away ABCs broadcast license.

Is that a meaningful distinction? If they had offered instead to show strong favoritism to Disney for suspending Jimmy Kimmel would that have made it okay? I think it's wrong for the federal government to pressure Disney in this way regardless of the means.

There is a huge difference between “soft power” and using the bully pulpit and bringing the full legal force of the government and taking away a broadcast license. This was a bridge too far for conservative politicians.

The other distinction you seem to be ignoring is that the Biden administration was doing it because of public health concerns. Trump and the FCC was doing it because a comedian said meab things aboit him and a devout racist.

What favoritism did the Biden administration show? They still went after Google for being a monopoly.

Unlike Trump who only had his administration approve the Paramount deal after accepting a $15 million bribe in public