Twitter is those public-use bulletin boards at the entrances of grocery stores.
(are those still a thing? Practically every store of any size had one in the 90s, at least, but I haven't paid attention and can't for-sure recall seeing one in years)
This is like a big private club that allows anyone to enter and has effectively taken the place of a town square, due to (among other things) lack of such a public project. It ought to be owned by the government, but we've privatized it.
It isn't a town square - a town square is public. Twitter is a private organization. In this case, Twitter is the tavern. The Internet is the town square.
Sure, but for a lot of people sites like Twitter are their way of spreading information and having discussions online. Sadly the days of everyone hosting their own personal site or blog are gone for most of the less technically savvy.
I think the idea is more about Twitter functioning as a public square. The claim is usually that if Twitter functions sufficiently similar to a public square, then the public should reasonably concerned about how/if Twitter amplifies or restricts certain people.
