Even if you believe Twitter acted appropriately in this instance, anyone with a commitment to free speech should find the whole episode chilling: a private technology company, answerable to no one other than shareholders, acting on policies and principles that are self-formulated and ill-defined, and with no safeguards or due process that accompany a judicial process, takes a decision to “de-platform” the President of the world’s most powerful country from the most important political medium of the day.
When Socrates, the free-speech gadfly of the Athenian elite, was “de-platformed”, it was done by a citizen jury, and Socrates spoke in his defence.