I believe the reason was that this article is focused upon the relationship of the lead editor at RS with the subject of the original story by Tatiana Siegel in October 2022.

There was a later RS article written by Adam Rawnsley on Feb 2023 that goes further in depth on the charges. It's an article not for the squeamish.

If you're curious you can dig up the Reddit conversations off the original aforementioned article. They chalk it up to the FBI trying to stifle dissent, something both conspiracy and socialists agreed upon.

I also believe this NPR article is trying to show how the editorial curtailing of the original story lead to how this story could be spun to such an extent that when the later article was issued, there just wasn't a big shitstorm surrounding it.