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If I was in twitter's position I would ignore all email requests by the FBI unless it's life or death , like terrorism. Twitter needs to make it clear that they are only a social network, and that twitter's staff has no responsibility beyond that. If it's important enough they, the feds, will notify via registered mail or some other means. Someone posting misinformation about an election? not our problem.
Taibbi does argue in the release that Twitter execs were nervous about getting dragged in front of Congress again over alleged foreign interference and their lack of action. The implication is that they feared getting hit with new regulation or fine or whatever.
With the Feds attempts to censor I wander if they have a decent case to challenge any attempted government fine. If a speech company faces regulatory or fines they would not have a fairly decent argument that any fine violates the first amendment - since it can be construed as punishment for not participating in censorship.
It does seem like an outright requirement to censor would not be feasible, I agree. But there are other ways the gov might retaliate for failure to obey that might be next to impossible to prove are motivated by politics.
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