One thing that hasn't yet been remarked on here is that the 48-hour-warning message said that the linked posts were flagged for having phishing links. Notice th

One thing that hasn't yet been remarked on here is that the 48-hour-warning message said that the linked posts were flagged for having phishing links. Notice that the statements made afterward by MS were not on the grounds of the original "phishing links" report, but focusing on the content. However, if you look at the posts, you'll see a fair amount of unsavory content but no phishing links. I feel like this was purposeful on the part of whatever political group made these reports. Most likely, these hosting companies have automated anti-spam/phishing systems whereby, if a large number of reports come in, they will automatically send out an alert to the suspected offending party. If Outraged Group X goes to the company saying "this site you're hosting has vile speech and so you should take it down," it probably has to go through an internal company process, which might have a slightly higher bar for acting on it. However, if Outraged Group X falsely claims that "this site is hosting phishing links", something which might trigger an algorithmic response, then the company cannot easily reverse course -- because then the story becomes "Company ABC actively reverses course on allowing hate speech." The PR fallout locks them in.