Is there just a different set of free speech rules for the rich and powerful? If I incited violence on the platform, I doubt Elon or Dorsey would be letting me come back after a ban.
It's probably not in the public interest to broadcast every person's incitations of violence or bigotry, but the president? Yes. Certainly you're not implying you should be treated exactly the same as the president of the United States...
I'm implying that the spirit of free speech should apply equally to all. If the president can come back after inciting violence, then everyone else should as well. It's not a selective principle that you get to choose how you follow.
If you don't want violent rhetoric to spread then yes, limiting free speech and universally applying those rules is a viable path to achieve that.
Otherwise, you create a regulatory environment that only applies to you if you don't have the power, political capital, or fanbase to yell loud enough in your favor.
Anyhoo, what's that got to do with twitter? Since when did they become the police?
Twitter is responsible for moderating the users their platform, regardless of whether they are free speech purists. You cannot let your users plot crimes. That's why sites like Silk Road and AlphaBay were shut down.
You can easily find tweets calling for trump and republicans to be killed on twitter from years ago and nobody bothered to ban those people so your statement rings hollow.
There is a clear double standard, pointing that out isn't whataboutism it's simply calling bullshit on someone using the incite violence argument to say trump should stay banned.
As a non American who watched the summer of 2020 riots in absolute awe I will never understand why people even mention the 6th. It just doesn't compare.
From telling a crowd that they should beat up a heckler and he'd pay their legal bills (lol), to saying "maybe some of you second amendment types can do something about Hillary", and beyond.
There's no confusion.
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_impeachment_trial_of_Do...
Yes, just like there's one for left wing vs right wing. Trump was banned for violence for saying he won't attend the inauguration. Yet tweets calling for violence against the right are allowed. Many of them are years old.
You can search for yourself. Example:
* https://twitter.com/bobmorr32749439/status/15240565867375042... : "kill putin and trump and all the Republicans"
* https://twitter.com/gnarlyymarleyy/status/131111964852019609... : "can someone just assassinate trump so we can be done w this PLEASE"
Of course there is. Twitter's owner appoint managers who hire people to oversee censorship on the platform. These choices themselves are already biased towards the owners' interests and points of view. If you add to this ability of rich and powerful people/organizations to harass or influence Twitter, the bias is even stronger.
Having said that - the tweet Trump was suspended for:
https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/company/2020/suspensio...
does not seem like an incitement of violence.
“To all of those who have asked, I will not be going to the Inauguration on January 20th.”
Compare this "incitement to violence" against public posts calling for assassination of trump which were neither removed or resulted in bans.