There is a difference between a civil discourse and abuse filled with obscenities. There is also a difference between fair moderation and suppression of dissent

There is a difference between a civil discourse and abuse filled with obscenities. There is also a difference between fair moderation and suppression of dissent. When I post on HN anything about Trump or vaccines, HN doesn't add a note to my post informing readers about the 'correct' view on the problem. HN does restrict personal insults, and does it consistently for all sides of the conversation. That is fair moderation. Because it is fair, I don't feel that my (or anyone) right for free speech is limited here. The spirit of free speech principle is not violated. Twitter, on the other hand, was applying their rules very selectively, discrediting views that they consider 'incorrect' with various notices, and blocking or restricting users with political views they don't like. That's suppression. Of course, Twitter, like other plaftorms, DOES have the right to run their platform as they see fit, private company and all, but here comes another facet of this problem: everything can formally be a private platform, yet everything can be run by the government. It is not a hypothetical situation, in Russia every remaining media source is directly or indirectly controlled by the government. Putin's best friend, an oligarch, owns all social networks in Russia, and can just shut down any user that tries to oppose the war. No, not censorship, free enterprises. It is a known fact that oligarchy can merge with the government very closely, and do become a de-facto cernsorship arm of the ruling party, while formally retaining their rights to block anyone who's views they don't like. This is not a theoretical problem and this is what happening now. So the free world is not facing a difficult problem, how to balance the possibility (and dire necessity!) of having a public discourse on painful problems faced by the society with the rights of the commercial platforms that this discourse takes place on. I'd prefer Twitter to be politically neutral than trying to actively taking one side. That would be better for them, for their users, and basically for everybody. And it is actually fully within their rights.