---
title: Government pressure on platforms and broadcasters ("jawboning"), 2020-2026
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/platform-moderation-jawboning/
description: officials of both major U.S. parties, and a European commissioner, have asked, urged or warned private platforms and broadcasters about speech they…
section: Case studies
---

![Illustration: a contemporary investigator's evidence wall of printed social-media posts, network diagrams and a pinned world map, in the same dossier style as the rest of the archive.](https://propagandaarchive.org/static/generated/detail/hero-contemporary-evidence-wall.jpg)

[Case studies](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/)

# Government pressure on platforms and broadcasters ("jawboning"), 2020-2026

At a glance

Officials of both major U.S. parties, and a European commissioner, have asked, urged or warned private platforms and broadcasters about speech they carried…

- **When:** October 14, 2020
- **Actor:** U.S. federal officials under Presidents Trump and Biden…
- **Target:** Social-media platforms…
- **Confidence:** **high** Multiple independent open sources, low disagreement about the facts
- **Techniques:** [Name-calling](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/name-calling/) [Euphemism / doublespeak](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/euphemism/)
- **Regime:** [Trump administration](https://propagandaarchive.org/regimes/trump-administration/)

Full details

- **Actor:** U.S. federal officials under Presidents Trump and Biden (White House, FBI, Surgeon General, CDC, CISA, FCC), New York's Department of Financial Services, the European Commission, and Brazil's Supreme Federal Court
- **Target:** Social-media platforms (Twitter/X, Facebook/Meta, YouTube) and broadcasters (ABC and its affiliates), and through them the users and hosts whose speech was at issue

On this page

- [What happened](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/platform-moderation-jawboning/#what-happened)
- [How it works](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/platform-moderation-jawboning/#how-it-works)
- [Then and now](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/platform-moderation-jawboning/#then-and-now)
- [Positions on the record](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/platform-moderation-jawboning/#positions-on-the-record)
- [Same-method test](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/platform-moderation-jawboning/#same-method-test)
- [How to spot it](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/platform-moderation-jawboning/#how-to-spot-it)
- [Images](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/platform-moderation-jawboning/#images)
- [Sources](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/platform-moderation-jawboning/#sources)

On this page

**In one line:** officials of both major U.S. parties, and a European commissioner, have asked, urged or warned private platforms and broadcasters about speech they carried, while EU regulators and Brazil's Supreme Federal Court have acted against X under formal law; U.S. courts say government may try to persuade but may not coerce, and in the leading platform case the Supreme Court decided standing, not whether the line was crossed.

![Diagram: an official contacts a platform or broadcaster; the company removes, demotes, suspends or keeps the speech; courts ask whether the contact was persuasion or a threat; Bantam Books (1963) and NRA v. Vullo (2024) set the test, while Murthy v. Missouri (2024) was decided on standing](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/images/platform-moderation-jawboning-diagram.svg)

![West facade of the United States Supreme Court Building at dusk, Washington, D.C.](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/images/platform-moderation-jawboning-supreme-court.jpg)

*The U.S. Supreme Court Building, where* Murthy v. Missouri *and* NRA v. Vullo *were decided in 2024. Photo by Joe Ravi, 10 October 2011, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.*

## What happened

"Jawboning" is the informal use of official position to get a private intermediary to act against someone else's speech. No statute is invoked and no order is served; the question is what the request carried with it. This page does not rule on whether any of the speech involved was true. The wider dispute over government and research efforts against disinformation, of which *Missouri v. Biden* is one part, is covered in [The debate over counter-disinformation](https://propagandaarchive.org/learn/debates/).

**The precedent**

- **18 February 1963.** *Bantam Books, Inc. v. Sullivan*, 372 U.S. 58. Rhode Island's Commission to Encourage Morality in Youth sent distributors notices listing "objectionable" books and noted that it could refer cases to prosecutors. The Court held that this "system of informal censorship" violated the Constitution, although the Commission had no power to ban anything itself.

**October 2020: the laptop story**

- **2020, before the election.** The FBI briefs platforms on the risk of foreign "hack-and-leak" operations. On Joe Rogan's podcast (25 August 2022) Mark Zuckerberg recalls the message: "you should be on high alert … there's about to be some kind of dump that's similar to that." He says it did not name the laptop story, which "fit the pattern"; Facebook reduced the story's distribution for about a week while fact-checkers reviewed it.
- **14 October 2020.** The *New York Post* publishes emails it says came from a laptop belonging to Hunter Biden. Twitter blocks links to the story under its hacked-materials policy and locks the *Post*'s account. On 15 October its policy head Vijaya Gadde announces that Twitter will no longer remove hacked content "unless it is directly shared by hackers or those acting in concert with them" and will label instead.
- **19 October 2020.** 51 former intelligence officials sign a public letter saying the story has "all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation", while stating: "we do not know if the emails … are genuine or not and that we do not have evidence of Russian involvement." The signatories were private citizens, not serving officials.
- **Later record.** In March 2022 two security experts who examined a copy of the data for the *Washington Post* verified thousands of the emails as authentic through their cryptographic signatures; most of the roughly 129,000 emails could not be verified either way, and neither expert found clear evidence of tampering. In June 2024 prosecutors in Hunter Biden's federal gun trial introduced the laptop as evidence, after an FBI agent testified that its serial number matched Apple's records for his account.
- **25 March 2021.** At a House Energy and Commerce hearing, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey says: "We made a total mistake with the New York Post … It was not to do with the content, it was to do with the hacked materials policy."

**2021: COVID-19 content**

- **15-16 July 2021.** White House press secretary Jen Psaki says: "We're flagging problematic posts for Facebook that spread disinformation." The next day President Biden, asked about platforms, says: "They're killing people." Facebook replies: "We will not be distracted by accusations which aren't supported by the facts."

**The Twitter Files (from 2 December 2022)**

- **2 December 2022.** Matt Taibbi posts internal Twitter documents released by the new owner, Elon Musk. He reports that in 2020 "requests from both the Trump White House and the Biden campaign were received and honored" ("More to review from the Biden team"), and that more channels were open to Democrats than to Republicans.
- **What critics say it does not show.** Taibbi himself writes: "there's no evidence - that I've seen - of any government involvement in the laptop story." In October 2020 the Biden campaign was not the government, and reporting from archived copies found that four of the five tweets in its flagged email contained non-consensual nude images, already barred by Twitter's rules.
- **9-12 December 2022.** Taibbi, Michael Shellenberger and Bari Weiss publish threads on the internal debate before Twitter suspended President Trump; its 8 January 2021 statement had cited "the risk of further incitement of violence."
- **Later in December 2022.** Further threads describe FBI emails flagging accounts and posts. On 21 December the FBI calls these "traditional, longstanding and ongoing" engagements and says "conspiracy theorists and others are feeding the American public misinformation with the sole purpose of attempting to discredit the agency."
- **8 February 2023.** At a House Oversight hearing, former Twitter employee Anika Collier Navaroli testifies that in 2019 the Trump White House asked Twitter to remove a tweet by Chrissy Teigen insulting the President. Twitter did not remove it.

**The court cases**

- **4 July 2023.** In *Missouri v. Biden*, Judge Terry Doughty (W.D. La.) issues a preliminary injunction barring many federal agencies and officials from urging platforms to remove or suppress protected speech. His opinion says the case "arguably involves the most massive attack against free speech in United States' history" and likens the government's role to "an Orwellian 'Ministry of Truth.'"
- **8 September and 3 October 2023.** The Fifth Circuit finds that the White House, Surgeon General, FBI, CDC and (in the revised opinion) CISA likely coerced or significantly encouraged platforms, and narrows the injunction. On 20 October the Supreme Court stays it and grants review.
- **30 May 2024.** *National Rifle Association of America v. Vullo*, 602 U.S. 175, unanimous, opinion by Justice Sotomayor. New York's financial regulator had urged insurers and banks to cut ties with the NRA. The Court holds: "Government officials cannot attempt to coerce private parties in order to punish or suppress views that the government disfavors."
- **26 June 2024.** *Murthy v. Missouri*, 603 U.S. 43, 6-3, opinion by Justice Barrett. The plaintiffs lacked standing: they had not shown "a substantial risk" of future injury "traceable to a Government defendant." Many district-court findings "appear to be clearly erroneous", and the platforms "had independent incentives to moderate content and often exercised their own judgment." The Court does not decide whether the contacts were coercive. Justice Alito, joined by Justices Thomas and Gorsuch, dissents: the officials' conduct was "blatantly unconstitutional", and "If a coercive campaign is carried out with enough sophistication, it may get by. That is not a message this Court should send."
- **23 March 2026.** On remand the parties agree a consent decree, which Judge Doughty approves later that week, barring the Surgeon General, CDC and CISA from threatening platforms to remove protected speech. The government admits no wrongdoing and the decree is not a finding on the merits.

**The companies' later accounts**

- **26 August 2024.** Zuckerberg writes to House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan that in 2021 "senior officials from the Biden Administration, including the White House, repeatedly pressured our teams for months to censor certain COVID-19 content, including humor and satire." He adds: "Ultimately it was our decision whether or not to take content down," and, on the laptop story, "in retrospect, we shouldn't have demoted the story." The White House replies that it "encouraged responsible actions to protect public health and safety."
- **7 January 2025.** Meta ends U.S. third-party fact-checking for Community Notes; Zuckerberg says Meta will "work with President Trump to push back on governments around the world" that are "pushing to censor more."

**September 2025: the FCC and Jimmy Kimmel**

- **15 September 2025.** Jimmy Kimmel says on ABC: "We hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them."
- **17 September 2025.** FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, on Benny Johnson's podcast, calls the remark "some of the sickest conduct possible" and says: "We can do this the easy way or the hard way. These companies can find ways to change conduct and take action, frankly, on Kimmel or there's going to be additional work for the FCC ahead." Nexstar, whose $6.2 billion purchase of Tegna needed FCC approval, says its ABC stations will drop the show; ABC then says the show "will be pre-empted indefinitely." President Trump calls it "great news for America."
- **19 September 2025.** Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas), chair of the Senate Commerce Committee, says on his podcast that Carr's words were "right out of a mafioso coming into a bar going, 'Nice bar you have here. It'd be a shame if something happened to it.'" FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez, a Democrat, also criticises Carr.
- **23-26 September 2025.** The show returns on ABC on 23 September; Nexstar and Sinclair keep it off their stations until 26 September. Nexstar says it acted "unilaterally" with no communication with the FCC. Carr says Kimmel's situation arose "because of his ratings, not because of anything that's happened at the federal government level."
- **2026.** The FCC orders early license-renewal filings for ABC's stations, citing an inquiry into Disney's diversity policies; ABC's filing says the order's "true purpose and inescapable effect" is "to suppress speech."

![Official portrait of FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/images/platform-moderation-jawboning-carr.jpg)

*Brendan Carr, official FCC portrait, 2017, when he was a commissioner; he became chairman in January 2025. Federal Communications Commission, public domain (U.S. government work).*

**Outside the United States**

- **European Union.** The Digital Services Act (Regulation (EU) 2022/2065) sets legal duties for very large platforms. On 12 July 2024 the Commission issues preliminary findings against X on its paid blue checkmark, ad repository and researcher data access. On 12 August 2024 Commissioner Thierry Breton writes to Musk before his live interview with Donald Trump, citing X's duty to adopt "mitigation measures … regarding the amplification of harmful content in connection with relevant events, including live streaming." A Commission spokesperson says the letter was not coordinated with or agreed by President von der Leyen. On 5 December 2025 the Commission fines X €120 million on the three transparency counts. Secretary of State Marco Rubio calls it "an attack on all American tech platforms and the American people by foreign governments"; Commissioner Henna Virkkunen says the DSA has "nothing to do with censorship." On 23 December 2025 the State Department bars Breton and four others from entry; Rubio calls them "radical activists and weaponized NGOs" who "led organized efforts to coerce American platforms to censor, demonetize, and suppress American viewpoints they oppose."
- **Brazil.** After X declined to comply with court orders to block accounts and to name a legal representative, Justice Alexandre de Moraes of the Supreme Federal Court orders X suspended nationwide on 30 August 2024; a panel of the Court confirms it days later. X blocks the accounts at issue, names a representative and pays about R$28.6 million in fines; access is restored on 8 October 2024.
- **United Kingdom.** The Online Safety Act 2023 (Royal Assent 26 October 2023) gives Ofcom statutory powers over platforms' handling of illegal and child-harmful content.

![Thierry Breton, European Commissioner for Internal Market, shaking hands with Canada's Chrystia Freeland in front of EU and Canadian flags](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/images/platform-moderation-jawboning-breton.jpg)

*Thierry Breton, then European Commissioner for Internal Market (right), with Canada's Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland, 30 January 2023. Dave Chan / European Union, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.*

The EU fine, the Brazilian suspension and the UK Act rest on formal legal powers applied by regulators or courts, and their decisions can be appealed, although X says Moraes threatened its legal representative with arrest "in a secret order". Breton's letter is the closest of these to informal pressure, and the Commission distanced itself from it. In U.S. jawboning disputes the question is instead whether an informal request carried an implied threat.

## How it works

Censorship is not itself a technique id in FRAME's taxonomy; the tags below describe the officials' messaging around their requests, not the moderation decisions themselves. Each is documented in the words of officials of both U.S. parties and of a European official.

- [Name-calling](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/name-calling/): labels that invite the audience to dismiss a target without checking the claim. President Biden's "They're killing people" about Facebook (July 2021); the FBI's "conspiracy theorists" for people criticising its contacts with Twitter (December 2022); Carr's "some of the sickest conduct possible" for Kimmel's monologue (September 2025); Rubio's "radical activists and weaponized NGOs" for the five people barred in December 2025.
- [Euphemism / doublespeak](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/euphemism/): phrases that describe a request to act against speech without naming the act. "Flagging problematic posts" (White House, 2021) and "encouraged responsible actions" (White House, 2024) do not say what the platform was asked to do with the posts; "find ways to change conduct and take action … on Kimmel" (Carr, 2025) does not say what action; "mitigation measures … regarding the amplification of harmful content" (Breton, 2024) does not say which content or which measures.

Considered and not tagged: the Twitter Files and the intelligence officials' letter were produced by private actors, not by the governments applying pressure, so their framing is left to "Positions on the record".

## Then and now

The sibling case [Wartime censorship in the First World War: Britain, Germany, France and the United States](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/wwi-wartime-censorship/) shows Postmaster General Albert Burleson declaring publications unmailable under Title XII of the Espionage Act of 15 June 1917. The differences matter more than the likeness. Burleson used a statutory power: his decision itself kept the paper out of the mail. Jawboning uses no such power; a platform or broadcaster decides, and the legal question is whether an official's request carried a threat that made the choice not really the company's. *Bantam Books* (1963) sits between the two: a state body with no power to ban books, whose notices the Court still treated as censorship because of what they implied.

## Positions on the record

- **Governments' stated rationales.** The Biden White House: it acted during "a deadly pandemic", and companies made "independent choices about the information they present." Its lawyer in *Murthy*, Principal Deputy Solicitor General Brian Fletcher (18 March 2024): the government "may not use coercive threats to suppress speech, but it is entitled to speak for itself by informing, persuading or criticizing private speakers." The FBI: threat-sharing is "longstanding." Carr: no license was threatened. The Trump administration: European officials and NGOs pressure U.S. platforms to censor Americans. The Commission: the DSA has "nothing to do with censorship." Brazil's court: X had to obey court orders and have a legal representative.
- **Platforms' stated positions.** Twitter (Dorsey): the laptop block was "a total mistake" under a policy it changed in a day. Meta (Zuckerberg): "the government pressure was wrong", the decisions were Meta's own, and it will resist pressure "from any administration in either direction". Nexstar: its decision was its own. X: on the Commission's July 2024 preliminary findings, Musk said the Commission had offered "an illegal secret deal: if we quietly censored speech without telling anyone, they would not fine us" (Breton replied that X's own team had asked how the DSA's settlement process worked). On Brazil, X said in August 2024 that Moraes had threatened its legal representative "with arrest if we do not comply with his censorship orders", "in a secret order", and it closed its Brazilian office. Musk answered Breton's August letter with a vulgar meme, and X declined to name a Brazilian legal representative until the suspension.
- **Civil-liberties critics.** FIRE filed in support of the plaintiffs in *Murthy*, and titled its response to Carr "Carr's threats to ABC are jawboning any way you slice it." The ACLU argued for the NRA in *Vullo*; its legal director David Cole said: "While the ACLU disagrees with the NRA's advocacy, we are proud to defend its right to speak." EFF, with the Center for Democracy and Technology, asked the Court in *Murthy* to apply the *Bantam Books* test to government contacts with platforms.
- **Those who say the contacts were lawful persuasion or not causal.** Beyond the government's own arguments above, the *Murthy* majority found the plaintiffs had not tied their moderation to government action. On Kimmel, Carr and Nexstar both say the station group's decision was its own.
- **This archive's reading.** Court records establish: the *Bantam Books* and *Vullo* rule that informal coercion of intermediaries can violate the First Amendment; the district and appeals courts' findings of likely coercion, which the Supreme Court criticised in part and did not adopt; the Supreme Court's standing holding; and a 2026 consent decree with no admission. Documents and sworn testimony establish that officials and campaigns of both parties asked Twitter to act on specific posts, and that Twitter and Facebook restricted the laptop story after FBI briefings on hack-and-leak risks. That the briefings did not name the story rests on Zuckerberg's account of what Facebook was told, the only source on this page for what they said. No court has ruled on the merits of whether the Biden administration's contacts, or Carr's remarks, were unconstitutional coercion; both are contested. The EU fine concerns transparency duties, not removal of specific posts. This page takes no position on whether any of the speech at issue was true or false.

## Same-method test

The questions are the same whoever holds office: who asked, what was said, what power the asker held over the recipient, and what the recipient did next. A Republican regulator warning of "additional work for the FCC" over a network show and a Democratic White House publicly accusing a platform of "killing people" are tested the same way, as are a European commissioner's letter and a Brazilian court order. The differences in the record are stated, not averaged: court orders and regulatory fines are formal and appealable; U.S. jawboning is informal, and the evidence of threat has to be read from context.

## How to spot it

- Separate a formal order (a statute, a court decision, a regulatory fine) from an informal request. The first is on the record; the second is where jawboning disputes arise.
- Ask what power the official holds over the recipient: licenses, mergers, regulation, prosecution. *Vullo* asks whether a request "viewed in context, could be reasonably understood to convey a threat."
- Note the verb. "Flag", "encourage", "take action", "mitigate" often stand where "remove", "suspend" or "demote" would be.
- Read every later account of pressure, from officials and companies alike, as an account made at a particular political moment.

## Images

| Image | Source | Licence |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Mechanism diagram (above) | Drawn for FRAME from this page's sourced facts (`make_diagrams.py`) | CC BY 4.0, FRAME |
| U.S. Supreme Court Building at dusk (2011) | [Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Panorama_of_United_States_Supreme_Court_Building_at_Dusk.jpg), Joe Ravi | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
| Brendan Carr, official FCC portrait (2017) | [Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Brendan_Carr_official_portrait.jpg), Federal Communications Commission | Public domain (U.S. government work) |
| Thierry Breton with Chrystia Freeland (2023) | [Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Thierry_Breton,_European_Commissioner,_in_Canada_-_2023_(P060021-408458).jpg), Dave Chan / European Union | CC BY 4.0 |

### Image gaps

- **The *New York Post* front page and article of 14 October 2020.** Copyrighted; not openly licensed.
- **Screenshots of the Twitter Files threads, Twitter's blocked-link notice, and Trump's and Rubio's posts.** No openly licensed copies found on Wikimedia Commons; the underlying platform interfaces and some text are not openly licensed.
- **Zuckerberg's letter to Jordan and Breton's letter to Musk.** Posted on X as images by the House Judiciary Committee's Republican majority and by Breton; not found on Wikimedia Commons, and an EU official's letter is not covered by the U.S. federal public-domain rule.
- **Frames from Jimmy Kimmel Live! (15 September 2025).** Copyrighted broadcast.
- **Court opinions (Doughty's 4 July 2023 opinion, the Supreme Court slip opinions).** U.S. federal court documents are public domain, but uscourts.gov and supremecourt.gov were not reachable from the build environment. **This gap can be filled.**

## Sources

- *Bantam Books, Inc. v. Sullivan*, 372 U.S. 58 (1963), decided 18 February 1963.
- *Missouri v. Biden*, No. 3:22-cv-01213 (W.D. La.), memorandum ruling and preliminary injunction, 4 July 2023 (Doughty, J.); [Missouri Attorney General's copy](https://ago.mo.gov/docs/default-source/press-releases/missouri-v-biden-ruling.pdf).
- *State of Missouri v. Biden*, No. 23-30445 (5th Cir. 8 September 2023; revised 3 October 2023); [Justia](https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/ca5/23-30445/23-30445-2023-09-08.html).
- *Murthy v. Missouri*, No. 23A243, order granting stay and certiorari, 20 October 2023; [supremecourt.gov](https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/23a243_7l48.pdf).
- *Murthy v. Missouri*, 603 U.S. 43 (2024), decided 26 June 2024; [slip opinion](https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/23-411_3dq3.pdf).
- *National Rifle Association of America v. Vullo*, 602 U.S. 175 (2024), decided 30 May 2024; [slip opinion](https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/22-842_6kg7.pdf).
- Missouri v. Biden consent decree, March 2026: [First Amendment Encyclopedia](https://firstamendment.mtsu.edu/article/missouri-v-biden-consent-decree-2026/); [NCLA release, 24 March 2026](https://nclalegal.org/press_release/ncla-reaches-historic-settlement-strikes-major-blow-against-governments-social-media-censorship/); [Lawfare, "What the Murthy v. Missouri and Daily Wire Consent Decrees Do—and Don't—Establish"](https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/what-the-murthy-v.-missouri-and-daily-wire-consent-decrees-do-and-don-t-establish).
- Twitter hacked-materials policy change: [TechCrunch, 16 October 2020](https://techcrunch.com/2020/10/16/twitter-changes-its-hacked-materials-policy-in-wake-of-new-york-post-controversy/).
- Former intelligence officials' letter, 19 October 2020: [The Hill](https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/521823-50-former-intelligence-officials-warn-ny-post-story-sounds-like-russian/).
- Dorsey testimony, House Energy and Commerce Committee, 25 March 2021.
- Forensic review of the laptop data: [*Washington Post*, 30 March 2022](https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/03/30/hunter-biden-laptop-data-examined/).
- The laptop admitted as evidence at trial, FBI testimony: [ABC News, 4 June 2024](https://abcnews.com/US/4-big-takeaways-1st-day-testimony-hunter-bidens/story?id=110830830).
- Musk on the Commission's preliminary findings, and Breton's reply: [Euronews, 12 July 2024](https://www.euronews.com/2024/07/12/elon-musk-claims-eu-offered-an-illegal-secret-deal-as-x-charged-with-dsa-breaches).
- X's statement on the Brazilian orders and its office closure: [TechCrunch, 17 August 2024](https://techcrunch.com/2024/08/17/x-says-its-closing-operations-in-brazil).
- Zuckerberg on *The Joe Rogan Experience*, 25 August 2022: [The Hill](https://thehill.com/policy/technology/3616579-zuckerberg-tells-rogan-that-facebook-suppressed-hunter-biden-laptop-story-after-fbi-warning-defends-agency-as-legitimate-institution/).
- Psaki briefing, 15 July 2021, and Biden remarks, 16 July 2021, with Facebook's reply: [CNBC, 16 July 2021](https://www.cnbc.com/2021/07/16/white-house-says-facebook-needs-to-do-more-to-fight-vaccine-misinformation.html); [CNBC, 17 July 2021](https://www.cnbc.com/2021/07/17/facebook-refutes-biden-claim-that-its-killing-people-with-vaccine-misinformation.html).
- Matt Taibbi, "The Twitter Files" thread, 2 December 2022: [X](https://x.com/mtaibbi/status/1598822959866683394); tweet 22 on government involvement: [X](https://twitter.com/mtaibbi/status/1598833927405215744).
- Critics' reading of the Biden-campaign requests: [Salon, 5 December 2022](https://www.salon.com/2022/12/05/elon-musks-hyped-twitter-files-show-biden-campaign-asked-to-remove-hunter-biden-nude-photos/); [NPR, 14 December 2022](https://www.npr.org/2022/12/14/1142666067/elon-musk-is-using-the-twitter-files-to-discredit-foes-and-push-conspiracy-theor).
- Twitter, "Permanent suspension of @realDonaldTrump", 8 January 2021: [blog](https://blog.x.com/en_us/topics/company/2020/suspension).
- FBI statement on the Twitter Files, 21 December 2022, as reported by [CNN, 23 December 2022](https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/23/politics/twitter-files-elon-musk-fbi-hunter-biden-laptop/index.html).
- House Oversight Committee hearing with former Twitter employees, 8 February 2023: [govinfo transcript](https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CHRG-118hhrg50898/html/CHRG-118hhrg50898.htm).
- Zuckerberg letter to Rep. Jim Jordan, 26 August 2024, and White House response: [CNBC, 27 August 2024](https://www.cnbc.com/2024/08/27/zuckerberg-alleges-white-house-pressured-meta-to-censor-covid-19-content.html); [Fortune, 27 August 2024](https://fortune.com/2024/08/27/mark-zuckerberg-meta-censorship-biden-administration-letter/).
- Meta, "More speech and fewer mistakes", 7 January 2025: [NPR, 7 January 2025](https://www.npr.org/2025/01/07/nx-s1-5251151/meta-fact-checking-mark-zuckerberg-trump).
- Kimmel monologue, Carr remarks and ABC and Nexstar statements: [NPR, 17 September 2025](https://www.npr.org/2025/09/17/g-s1-89380/jimmy-kimmel-abc-charlie-kirk); [Variety](https://variety.com/2025/tv/news/brendan-carr-abc-fcc-jimmy-kimmel-charlie-kirk-1236522406/); [Fortune, 25 September 2025](https://fortune.com/2025/09/25/jimmy-kimmel-disney-charlie-kirk-abc-nexstar-sinclair-tv/).
- Cruz remarks, *Verdict with Ted Cruz*, 19 September 2025: [CNBC](https://www.cnbc.com/2025/09/19/ted-cruz-jimmy-kimmel-fcc-carr-mafia.html); [CBS News](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ted-cruz-fcc-brendan-carr-jimmy-kimmel-goodfellas-trump/).
- Commissioner Anna Gomez, statement on the Kimmel suspension: [FCC](https://www.fcc.gov/document/gomez-kimmel-suspension-and-censorship).
- Return and affiliate preemption: [CNBC, 23 September 2025](https://www.cnbc.com/2025/09/23/kimmel-abc-nexstar-sinclair-fcc.html); [NPR, 26 September 2025](https://www.npr.org/2025/09/26/nx-s1-5554473/jimmy-kimmel-sinclair-disney-abc-preempt-restore-nexstar).
- FIRE, "Carr's threats to ABC are jawboning any way you slice it": [thefire.org](https://www.thefire.org/news/carrs-threats-abc-are-jawboning-any-way-you-slice-it); FIRE on *Murthy*: [thefire.org](https://www.thefire.org/news/fire-statement-murthy-v-missouri).
- ACLU on *NRA v. Vullo*: [aclu.org](https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/aclu-defends-nras-first-amendment-rights-urges-supreme-court-to-protect); EFF amicus in *Murthy*: [eff.org](https://www.eff.org/press/releases/eff-urges-supreme-court-set-standard-how-government-can-and-cant-talk-social-media).
- FCC order on ABC licenses: [Axios, 28 April 2026](https://www.axios.com/2026/04/28/fcc-abc-jimmy-kimmel-broadcast-licenses); ABC's filing: [Deadline, May 2026](https://deadline.com/2026/05/abc-fcc-license-renewal-trump-1236929113/).
- Regulation (EU) 2022/2065 (Digital Services Act). Breton letter to Musk, 12 August 2024: [Euronews](https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2024/08/12/eus-breton-reminds-musk-of-legal-obligations-ahead-of-trump-interview); Commission spokesperson's response: [Anadolu Agency](https://www.aa.com.tr/en/europe/eu-commission-denies-involvement-in-letter-threatening-musk-before-trump-broadcast/3303412).
- European Commission, "Commission fines X €120 million under the Digital Services Act", 5 December 2025 (IP/25/2934): [ec.europa.eu](https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_25_2934). Rubio post: [X](https://x.com/SecRubio/status/1996974377003319667). Virkkunen remark: [CBC News](https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/elon-musk-x-fine-tech-regulators-9.7004932).
- State Department visa restrictions, 23 December 2025: [CNN](https://www.cnn.com/2025/12/23/politics/sanctions-censorship-state-rubio); [NPR](https://www.npr.org/2025/12/24/g-s1-103606/u-s-bars-five-europeans-american-viewpoints-online).
- Brazil: [Columbia Global Freedom of Expression, "The Case of the X Ban in Brazil"](https://globalfreedomofexpression.columbia.edu/cases/the-case-of-the-x-ban-in-brazil/); [Human Rights Watch, 9 October 2024](https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/10/09/right-lessons-flap-over-x-brazil).
- Online Safety Act 2023 (c. 50): [House of Commons Library briefing](https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cdp-2025-0043/).