of course they can. but this article isn't even tangentially about punishing freedom of speech. it is you who are attempting to make it about that by dragging in unrelated issues.

This is not me putting some unrelated pet issue into this topic; to evaluate David Sack's post arguing against government regulation, it's entirely fair to examine whether he has been consistent. He hasn't. He supported a government-imposed pause on Anthropic because of his political disagreements with the CEO.

Your initial reply of "poor Anthropic" was vague, but I interpreted it as implying that we shouldn't stick to a principle given they are unsympathetic in some way.