Twitter isn't a public agora, through - it's a private commercial company, so while it may claim to promote free speech, the reality is that they will only allow free speech that they deem acceptable. And since they're a commercial enterprise, what they deem acceptable will be based on popular opinion. Hence misogyny and cancellation is the norm there.
I personally think no public organisation or business with any credibility or claim to ethics should be on a social media platform that operates like this
This is a really interesting point, and it gives me hope that something can be done.
It's similar to the Stonewall issue - it's not Stonewall that's the problem, it's the fact that public bodies have unquestioning followed everything they say as gospel when it's merely one arguably misguided charity's view of how the world should be.
The benefits of social media are widely valued by public bodies as a way to build awareness and foster public engagement, but the notion that public bodies are relying on commercial enterprises with their own values to engage with the public (and therefore are only able to engage with taxpayers that Twitter and other commercial social media enterprises deem worthy of being heard) is the problem. And as stakeholders in public bodies, that's the bit we actually can do something about. Similar to the Stonewall issue.
From my experience of the corporate world, companies also rely on Twitter and social media as a benchmark of what consumers approve of and don't, so I think raising awareness of the fact that social media companies are entitled to their own agendas, but that companies rely solely on the voices they hear through those media as representing the general opinion of the public do so at their peril might also help in the long run.
Also, lots of random members of the public probably have GC tweets deleted all the time, because much of what gets deleted is just common sense and affects heaps of everyday issues. But if those people aren't aware of gender ideology issues and how mad things are, they're unlikely to make a fuss as they won't have realised the significance of the silencing and will just think "that's odd" and go back to posting about their hobby or whatever.
I think it makes sense to hold governments to account on this specifically from an Equality Act perspective (under the protected characteristics of sex and gender critical beliefs, plus sexual orientation where relevant).
Any more general objection about free speech would make for strange bedfellows (conspiracy theorists, fascists, etc) so I think it needs to focus on the Equality Act specifically to be helpful to women.
Also, I'd be interested to know why public bodies think it's ok to engage with taxpayers on platforms that routinely permit misogyny, as it means women aren't able to join in the conversation and engage with these public bodies without being exposed to that misogyny. It's tantamount to the NHS or the local council holding their public meetings in a male-only space, and saying women are allowed but doing nothing to protect them from the sexism they encounter, and then saying "well, we invited women, but they weren't interested in joining in the discussion". And that's obviously sex-based discrimination under the Equality Act too.