The federal government was literally pressuring YouTube to remove certain COVID content that did not violate its policies. It's said explicitly in the story.

What I'm trying to get at is it's possible to stifle people's freedom of expression without literally blocking them from every platform. Threatening their livelihood. Threatening their home. Kicking them off these core social media networks. All of these things are "silencing". And we should be wary of doing that for things we simply disagree about.