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There’s actually legal reasons why publications would pay special care to their word choice like this. The difference between seeming violation and violation comes down to hard proof. Whether we like Elon’s sideshow or not, if there is a defendable claim that his post didn’t violate (e.g. new policy that allows it was approved internally but not yet published publicly), NYT could land themselves in a lawsuit that they have a chance of losing. Then ask yourself how many stories do they publish a day? The risk starts to add up quick.
So the word seeming is doing some heavy lifting there. If you ignore the ass covering, they did still report truth on something important.
I recognize this isn’t what the article is about but they mentioned Sawant, and I find it ironic that she routinely wouldn’t show up to meetings as a council member, yet does show up when she’s not.