Edit: as expected, this post has been flagged.
You fundamentally cannot enable people to speak without fear without infringing others' right to speak freely. In the context of a government, it is possible (only very barely, and frequently governments are unable to rise to this level) to create systems that punishes neither party and exit any and all attempts at moderation. But when you are running a social media site, this isn't a feasible option, and trying to punish people who are causing fear and limiting free speech will only cause the next wave of free speech sites to arise. Techdirt has a nice article on speedrunning content moderation: https://www.techdirt.com/2022/11/02/hey-elon-let-me-help-you...
Is it a rhetorical sham? Not necessarily, in the sense that I think its proponents could very well believe in what they say. But it is a belief whose consequences hasn't been fully thought-through, and I can't see anyone who still hews to that belief after fully thinking it through.
Was Elon just messing with them, or was it perhaps as I suggested and just a mistake? Will you reconsider, or are you unable to accept this as a possibility?
For what it's worth I think Elon was mismanaging Twitter so I have no interest in defending him. But equally I think the idea that he's sat around randomly suspending "left-wing" journalists is kinda silly.
I don't know why this is the case, but Twitter seems to trigger suspensions quite frequently. They seemed to have tightened their spam / abuse algorithms in recent months, but the pattern as of late is that that most genuine users who get suspended are reinstated on appeal.