The removal of the post illustrates how criticisms of powerful people, however distasteful, can be disappeared from social media sites for murky reasons. “It does highlight the power imbalances that can often exist in the way these platforms treat powerful figures,” Evelyn Douek, an assistant professor at Stanford Law School and scholar of content moderation policies, told The Intercept. “Often people in power get allowances because it’s in the public interest but people don’t for criticizing them, even though that’s often clearly in the public interest too.”

Douek, the Stanford professor, said that it seemed like an odd enforcement of the rule given the vast gulf in power between a professor and a monarch. “Unclear to me how the queen is going to be intimidated by that tweet,” she told The Intercept. “Surprised they stood by it, actually.”