I was specifically just talking about the reaction to the trending mod tools existing, as if that was bad or surprising in itself. That there are mod tools doesn't prove that there is political targeting. And in reverse, if you claim that Twitter isn't especially targeting some group, you hopefully aren't basing that claim on a naive "they can't be doing that because they don't have moderation tools".
Yes. We can also remember that Richard Stallman called Snowden a 'Hero' [0] for revealing the PRISIM programme was his strongest evidence around the NSA mass-surveillance and backdoors in general using internet services and companies. Without this, it would still be another 'conspiracy theory' which would have lacked any concrete evidence to support Stallman's claims.
[0] https://blogs.wsj.com/cio/2014/02/18/richard-stallman-calls-...
The reason why I liken this to Snowden is because at least anecdotally, the typically dialogue I have seen is
Conspiracy Theorist: "Twitter are shadow-banning people!"
Normal Person A: "That's a dumb conspiracy theory."
Twitter: "We are not shadow-banning people."
Normal Person B: "Here is proof that Twitter shadow-bans people."
Normal Person A: "Well yeah, obviously. It would be pretty naïve to think they weren't always doing this."
---
You can quite accurately substitute Twitter with the US government, shadow-banning with spying, and Normal Person B with Edward Snowden.