Yeah I too found that comparison to town square a bit odd. However, these comparisons are bound to fail, town square is a physical space that has natural limit

Yeah I too found that comparison to town square a bit odd. However, these comparisons are bound to fail, town square is a physical space that has natural limits such as number of people who can gather, speed of discussion and communication, tolerance to hostility and such. Almost none of these limits apply to a digital space. Humans just don’t know how to deal with these new media we are making up rules as we go along.