Governments can’t allow the public to have a debate about whether or not they are “censoring” people, which is why everyone who’s made claims in that direction, from Durov to Elon Musk to Glenn Greenwald to Max Blumenthal to me, has been tarred with the Hitler-of-the-month treatment in the press and dismissed as quacks, Trump supporters, or both.

Zuckerberg putting “censor” in writing forces the Dana Bashes of the world to start adding the Meta CEO to their already bloated list of Putin-loving right-wing fabulists. This technique is already stretched beyond the limits of plausibility, and a full defection from the Bullshit Cartel of Zuckerberg — whose internal analysts surely have a more accurate read on the population’s leanings than any poll agency — would make continued dismissals of censorship claims all but impossible. Were he to give full evidence to someone like Jordan, it would make the Twitter Files look like a mild appetizer.