If Twitter is an “authority”, what is the President of the United States?
Twitter has a platform whose design inherently amplifies the voices of high-profile people, and consequently dampens the voices of the non-high-profile. Why be OK with that, and yet somehow not be OK with minor design adjustments that provide a small, partial, counterweight?
You cast this as a “special ability” but isn’t this simply the design of the platform, as decided by the people who control the platform, and whose job it is to decide what the platform is? And how is a platform design dictated by someone else for their own benefit somehow more valid?
Perhaps you don’t know, but as President, Trump is given special privileges on Twitter, and is exempt from virtually all the normal TOS. By basic fairness in free speech principles, you would be arguing that he be held to the same standard as everyone else. That would have had gotten him banned from Twitter a long time ago.
Anyway, just to clear your thinking, think of what a truly fair speech platform would be like. It would, e.g., ensure that any message I or you posted would be just as prominent as one Trump or other high-profile person posted. Of course, such platforms aren’t of interest to high-profile people. They want a platform like Twitter where the rules are tilted in their favor. The only thing being argued about here is how massively in their favor the platform is made. That’s fine, but it doesn’t have anything to do with free speech. You express a desire for a relatively level playing field, but if that’s the case, why even talk about Twitter, which has never been even remotely about that?
> straw-manned
I’m afraid you’re getting lost here. I’m not straw-manning you or anyone. You can have any stance you want. It’s just up to you to express it.