The answer is that it was less censored than it is now. People just blew a few high-profile instances of moderation out of proportion and misinterpreted the nature of various official communications with the platform. In the last transparency report before Elon took over, Twitter’s compliance with government takedown requests was ~50%. Since Elon’s takeover, the compliance rate has gone up to ~80%. The idea that he was going to “free” Twitter was a ruse from the start, and Jack’s support of that idea suggests a stunning lack of judgment on his part, assuming he actually believed what he said at the time. Either way, no matter how much these billionaire tech bros claim to care about freedom, they will always prioritize their own material interests over the interests of the public. That is the lesson. 

 This tells me that you are not in fact interested in evidence-based perspectives on social media censorship. Either that or it’s only censorship to you when opinions you agree with are being suppressed. How you “feel” is irrelevant, for reasons I hope I don’t have to explain. 

 US intelligence agencies already said that the threats they identified with regard to TikTok were hypothetical. Of course, even hypothetical threats are good enough for politicians who already want to ban something. Either way, I have zero faith in the ability of our current elected officials to accurately identify propaganda, especially given that a concerning number of them seem to think the ongoing Donghua Jinlong joke is evidence of Chinese brainwashing. 

 This is why I’ve largely stopped interacting on NOSTR. The ability to edit or delete prior posts is crucial to a platform that prioritizes privacy and expressive freedom. 

 I’ve not felt the need to edit or delete any of my posts here either, but our comfort with that is not really the point. People are choosing decentralized platforms because they desire more self-governance on the internet, and when they’re told that they can’t even delete a post here, which is a fundamental feature pretty much anywhere else, they’re going to sour on NOSTR’s flavor of decentralization. 

Not to mention some people will inevitably say things that they later realize were incorrect or inappropriate or even hateful, and knowing that they can never fully disengage from their previous posts will make them less likely to use NOSTR long-term, especially if they have lots of followers. 

 Make no mistake, I said what I meant. Your comprehension struggles are yours alone. 

 Is 0xChat not filling the NOSTR-based messenger niche well enough? 

 This. The lack of user identifiers with SimpleX is quite difficult to explain to anyone who isn’t into privacy tech, which makes it a nonstarter for people who are averse to change. It has to be at least as easy to use as Signal. Even with Session, which is more straightforward than SimpleX, people still get spooked by the alphanumeric user identifiers. 

 If that’s what you gleaned from what I said, then I’m afraid the problem is one I cannot fix for you. Growing up is hard, but I trust you’ll get there.