July 8, 2023, 12:00 PM UTC

Picture a Republican administration “engaging” with social media companies to “recommend” that they delete or slow the spread of posts discussing voter suppression. Why? Because the White House’s experts have “debunked” most of the claims, and the rest, even if not “provably false,” nevertheless are “dubious.”

Imagine that some of the “requests” are as specific as this: “[W]anted to flag the below tweet and am wondering if we can get moving on the process of having it removed. ASAP.” And just in case the companies miss the point, suppose that an administration official states publicly that the White House “is assessing whether social-media platforms are legally liable for misinformation spread on their platforms.”