I never had a Twitter account, so perhaps my ignorance is showing.
Because a lot of important people are on it
It's the social media platform that is the least "managed" by PR. In other words, you're more likely to have the person from the profile actually using the app rather than PR. I could imagine Mark Cuban is sitting on the can writing his on tweets, which is not true for his other communications.
Because you can actually get paid if you produce a lot of engagement
Or was your comment more rhetorical? Because there are valid reasons someone would use it.
Do you think you're more likely to get your speech censored on Twitter compared to TikTok, Instagram, Reels, Facebook, Bluesky, etc? I don't get this hangup like "oh they lied about free speech" when literally every other social media platform is worse.
This seems less relevant each day. Even here on HN, Twitter used to be on front page almost every day. Now it is pretty rare. Which makes sense when most people are not able to see Twitter threads (if it works for non-logged at all).
> when literally every other social media platform is worse
This is based on?
Twitter is incredibly influential. Newspapers quote tweets generously. I've seen entire articles based on the tweets of someone with barely any followers, often self serving, used as cover. For instance you'll see "widely criticized... X user [...] posted 'this is unprecedented'"
You can not like Twitter and hold whatever political opinion you want, but don't pretend Twitter has little influence.
> This is based on?
I don't know, I see literal Nazis on the platform and I don't see them on any other social media platform, so maybe they have a more permissive policy? Doesn't seem an unreasonable measure of how much free speech is allowed. Similarly, I see people calling the owner a Nazi very prominently on my timeline and trending. I don't think you'll see TikTok trends criticizing China last very long.
Again, you can not like the platform and want to see fewer Nazis, but don't gaslight me by pretending other social media companies outside of 4-chan are somehow more dedicated to free speech.