Bingo; well, I'm not talking about one person in particular, but it goes like this:
"Hey [person at platform company], I'm [person whose social network slightly overlaps with yours but who has more reputation], a journalist at [publication that can instantly shape public opinion on any topic]. I'm doing an article on [bad person], who once said [worst interpretation of anything person has ever said] and has been called [threat to public safety and order] by [prestigious NGO] and is also associated with [tenuously connected group that is even worse]. Are you aware your website is [assumption that company endorses bad person's content]? There has been [mention of thousands of angry and unstable people, implication of social and economic damage] on [social media platform where I myself and my friends have considerable influence] about this."
It's also interesting to think about why something becomes a "news event" in the first place, as if it were something that simply falls from the sky.
Some teachable moments about the soft censorship system are when 1) it misfires, like when a teenager stands around on video with a smile in the general vicinity of a Native American man and has his reputation immediately smeared by multiple national networks and thousands of other highly credentialed professionals, 2) when a dozen major online platforms and infrastructure services "independently" ban the same person in a 72 hour period, or 3) when snippets or leaks come out that demonstrate levers of political control, like the "YouTube Controversial Query Blacklist", or when the Chancellor of Germany asks Mark Zuckerberg on a hot mic to censor certain topics and he agrees.
"Hey [person at platform company], I'm [person whose social network slightly overlaps with yours but who has more reputation], a journalist at [publication that can instantly shape public opinion on any topic]. I'm doing an article on [bad person], who once said [worst interpretation of anything person has ever said] and has been called [threat to public safety and order] by [prestigious NGO] and is also associated with [tenuously connected group that is even worse]. Are you aware your website is [assumption that company endorses bad person's content]? There has been [mention of thousands of angry and unstable people, implication of social and economic damage] on [social media platform where I myself and my friends have considerable influence] about this."
It's also interesting to think about why something becomes a "news event" in the first place, as if it were something that simply falls from the sky.