I don't understand the reasoning. Techdirt itself wrote that policies of tech companies to curate content creates a danger of censoring information. Authorities used these mechanisms to do just that.

Now allegedly the trust & safety team for different platforms is to blame. Sure, they made mistakes too.

There were attempts to create misinformation authorities and key people at Twitter seemed very cooperative with this mission. I think Techdirt is trying to paint a different picture here.

The planned disinformation governance board was ultimately scrapped, but I doubt that is true for the intentions that lead to it. And these intentions are also on record for Twitter personnel.

I believe the term censorship can be applied to summarize the situation. Because there are clearly efforts by government institutions to pressure social media platforms to comply with content moderation decisions. That is the point people criticize. Is the attempt already a scandal? I believe so, but there also were more tangible examples that at least lack transparency and justification.

And all that doesn't even include any chilling effects. Maybe the former Twitter staff did a good job. Perhaps they are a victim of government requests. Musk doesn't make the impression to be a better shield. But in the end the goal, intend and effect is censorship still.

Additionally there are private services that also remove content on different platform. Often illegitimate content, but they often advertise themselves as not being restricted to that. Government can use these services too of course.