"I hope that even my worst critics remain on Twitter, because that is what free speech means". That was the battle cry of Elon MuskA South African-born entrepreneur whose companies have included the online payment service PayPal. as he sealed a bid to take over one of the world's biggest social media platforms.

Musk says he wants Twitter to be a "digital town square". In practice, this is likely to mean more lax moderation for posts on the platform.

Some high-profile banned users might be allowed back on the platform, including former president Donald Trump.

Campaigners have been calling for more moderation on Twitter for years.

They say relaxed moderation results in women and marginalised minorities facing racist, sexist and homophobic abuse. 

This makes it harder for people from those groups to express their opinions online.

This has happened before. The imageboard website 4chan was first created by internet users who were unhappy with the moderation of similar sites. It became a home for extremist and bigoted concepts that drove many users out.

What seems like complete freedom of speech actually ends up silencing the least powerful.

This debate has been raging for a long time. An early advocate of unrestrained free speech was 19th-Century English philosopher John Stuart MillA 19th-Century English philosopher who wrote extensively about freedom and democracy. He is regarded as the father of modern liberalism., who argued that silencing ideas was always bad. 

He argued that even if an idea were not true, it could serve the purpose of challenging and improving established ideas. So free expression would produce better ideas and prevent people from becoming too entrenched in their beliefs. 

Society would always benefit from people voicing their ideas.

But in his own time, this notion was unpopular. Mill's critics claimed he had misunderstood human nature. Challenging ideas does not lead people towards compromise; it encourages them to dig deeper into their opinion.

Philosopher Karl PopperA 20th-Century Austrian-British philosopher of science who was also a vocal critic of authoritarian politics. suggested complete free speech would lead to the end of free speech. If society tolerated all ideas, then it would lose the ability to fight those whose aim was to abolish freedom.

Mill's views gained wider acceptance during the Cold WarA period of diplomatic conflict between blocs led by the USA and the USSR that lasted from 1947 until 1991, when the USSR collapsed.. The totalitarian states of Nazi Germany and the USSR were a bitter reminder of the consequences of state to control. However messy the results, they claimed, it is always necessary to uphold freedom.

Yes: The voices of the powerful are always louder than those of the marginalised. Removing any restrictions on speech does not level the playing field; it just entrenches their advantage.

No: It is simply too dangerous for a free society to allow some people to determine which ideas are wrong or offensive. We all have to be prepared to raise our voices to defend our principles, instead of silencing dissent.

Or... What Twitter does only matters so much. Its users are still bound by the laws that already exist to prevent hate speech and unfounded allegations against individuals.