[cblades]

I think there's a pretty wide gulf between that and government-enforced censorship, to the point that comparing the two seems a bit disingenuous.

"Twitter has even begun censoring political speech from public figures"

vs

"The FBI will require Twitter to censor political speech from public figures"

I think those two scenarios are eons apart.

[lmm]

I disagree; I'd even say this is a peculiar blind spot in US political culture. Practically, it's probably easier to have a similar life in a non-US country than to have a similar life while avoiding these big platforms. Yes theoretically the US government has the ability to use violence against you while Twitter doesn't, but that doesn't seem to make a lot of difference to the practical impact - people are more worried about the government ruining their livelihood than locking them up, and that's something that Twitter can do just as well.

[modulos]

It is also disingenuous to refer to hate speech that breaks Twitter's rules as "political speech".