[richmarr]

> Can't half way free speech.

Twitter isn't your town square. They have legally set out T&Cs that specify what you are and aren't allowed to do using their service.

Abuse damages Twitter's reputation so it's totally fair for them to shut it down.

[VLM]

> Twitter isn't your town square.

Its a mall full of insane rentacops and the teens they hunt. The kids, good and bad, just want to hang out, almost no one goes there other than to hang out, but the mall owners are solely interested in selling $300 jeans to your mom.

[jaredklewis]

Yes, I am well aware Twitter has no obligation to maintain a censorship free platform, and indeed doing so may not make good business sense.

I was simply pointing out that for a brief time, Twitter was a unique Internet platform: both well known (celebrities and politicians use it) and free of censorship. Plenty of sites are censorship free but they are esoteric and laregly unknown to the general population. I admired that Twitter was a popular platform with unrestricted free speech.

[Nullabillity]

> Twitter isn't your town square.

And yet, that's what they want to seem like they are. Until something like this happens...

[richmarr]

> And yet, that's what they want to seem like they are. Until something like this happens...

They want to be as close to being a town square as it's possible for a commercial service to be... but there'll always be differences in behaviour caused by anonymity, and scale.

Perhaps more importantly, if the town square turns into a huge argument, and all the reasonable people go home, the town square doesn't have to explain what happened to its shareholders.

[Nullabillity]

As close as possible and as close as profitable are vastly different goals. As a user, the latter is not particularly interesting, even though most platforms (including this one, of course) take that approach, sadly.

[richmarr]

> As close as possible and as close as profitable are vastly different goals.

Sure, if you want to set up a non-profit or p2p social network (or contribute to an existing one) then good luck getting widespread adoption.

I sympathise, in the social networking world you're bound to the low common denominator of the group you want to talk to.

As a niche user you have a set of opinions that may or may not be bourne out by evidence of majority behaviour. The majority seems to without fail opt for profit-making services because they're usually higher quality & the conditions are broadly considered acceptable.

Edit: Corrected "down-sides" to "conditions" because I don't consider them entirely negative.

[croon]

Why sadly? Is there any meaningful discourse - AT ALL - that's been upended by Twitter "censoring" posts or banning users?

If they never have impeded on peoples abilities to have meaningful conversations and exchanging of ideas, then what exactly is the problem? If all you want to do is fling poo, go to the zoo (rhyme unintended).