I know everyone wants to go into their silos and say the question is between zero community standards whatsoever and what currently exists, but that was never the proposal despite Musk categorizing himself as a free speech absolutist. He specifically said that Twitter under his ownership would still restrict some speech. His actual proposal that would make the most meaningful change?
Open sourcing the algorithm so you can see what posts are being promoted or hidden and why. That's it.
Conservatives have mostly claimed that their content was being limited in it's reach while progressive content was being promoted, and talked a lot about shadow bans and the like. Most people on the other side have said they were just being conspiratorial, that the only speech being hidden was stuff like hate speech and threats.
If conservatives are right, they get an "I told you so" and it's harder for Twitter to continue to promote one type of thinking over another. If they're just being irrational and there actually isn't censorship of conservative ideas going on, their opponents can say "I told you so" instead. Technologically, making the algorithm transparent isn't something that can't be done, and there's only a handful of reasons not to do so... none of them good.
When looking at the actual details, it's not just about "free speech", and what is or isn't a "public square" or even a "de facto" public square. It's about transparency. Personally, I think that if there's gonna be censorship on social media platforms either way, letting users know the actual rules and what specifically is allowed or not/what will be promoted or hidden in feeds... seems fair enough and at very least shouldn't rise to the level of controversial.
For the record, I think the main reason Twitter doesn't want to do this might have less to do with conservative v. progressive arguments in the US... And more what they do in other countries that require censorship of certain things that the US government does not.
I mean... Twitter exists in plenty of countries that straight up kill critical journalists, gays, and political dissidents, run concentration camps or slave markets or maybe even engage in a bit of genocide...
What does the algorithm look like in those markets?
Hell... The Saudi royal family owns plenty of shares.