I think it's interesting that the senior leaders did not seem to have an internal non-partisan justification for quashing the Hunter Biden story, though that obviously lends evidence to prior suspicions.

>In the second case (quite amusingly, tbh) Weiss suggested Twitter was suppressing libsoftiktok, when in fact it was deliberately treating the account with kid gloves - i.e. she got it completely backwards.

I think you're the one that's getting it completely backwards - since Twitter's "kid gloves" treatment lacks any semblance of due process, it was seen as a brand risk to engage in repeated high-profile bannings. It's like having a law that you know is unjust and advising against enforcing it against anyone powerful so you don't get called out - you can call that "kid gloves" treatment but that's papering over the underlying problem.... if your moderation policies are defensible you shouldn't need to carve out exemptions like this.