> Anyway, just to clear your thinking,
Don't you think that this comes across as quite arrogant?
I wrote quite clearly that most people interested in free-speech aren't purists and might expect "limits to free speech" in certain circumstances, but that we'd like to discuss what this means with respect to the actual goal of a relatively level playing field for discussion.
You tell me that you've not strawmanned anybody, but within your first comment you wrote that "if you're a free speech purist you are OK with [Twitter] responding to free speech with their own free speech". This suggests that free speech is merely about being able to speak and that advocates would be happy for their speech to be stymied in other ways - and, in fact, pleased when all their speech has mandatory notices about its invalidity. Clearly this is not what free-speech advocates believe, so it certainly is straw-manning or as another put "some gymnastics".
Apart from that, the rest of what you said is relatively coherent and you did at least try to unpack the platform as-is.
It is true that the President of the United States is also an authority. However, are they an authority of Twitter? Well, they can't ban people or add editorial notes below the tweets of their opponents so perhaps not.
You also mention that "Trump is given special privileges on Twitter, and is exempt from virtually all the normal TOS", so shouldn't he be held to the same standard as everyone else? Well, yes. Why not?
As for whether new ways of adding editorial comment below people's tweets are "special abilities" I think so (because normal users can't do this).
However, I agree that Twitter was never "a free speech platform" and that by design it always amplified particular voices via crowd-sourcing. But, there is a difference between crowd-sourced amplification and centralised editorial oversight/amplification. While Twitter has "never been even remotely about [free speech]" the new features are clearly changing what it is from a crowd-sourced amplification platform to a platform with significant editorial oversight.
Is it better for there to be a centralised bias for or against different messages or identities or is it better for the bias to be crowd-sourced? Is the editorial oversight US-centric only? Who gets this power (e.g. governments, institutions, HR, etc)? When should there be limits to free speech? When some speech needs to be inhibited should this be done in the open or behind closed doors? Should infractions be explained? Does anybody get to break the rules?
I and many others would like if these questions could be answered by the big social networks. It's annoying when people simplify all of this into some primitive desire for everybody to be able to say whatever and have their voice amplified by a platform, since that is not what I am saying.