Is it actually anything like torture, though?

That's often not the point of analogies like this. So for the analog to be valid, the seriousness of the situation described doesn't have to be on similar levels. If you look up the definition of "analogy" on merriam-webster.com it says: "resemblance in some [my emphasis] particulars between things otherwise unlike"

Yeah, I know what an analogy is. It's a bloody stupid analogy because it's making a mountain out of a mole hill, when we all know that moles dig tunnels.

No, that is like saying someone should remove some obscene clothing before entering a private establishment and here you are comparing it to be tortured.

"You may not enter" is the literal definition of banning someone

If you can come back by removing the offending element, you aren't really banned.

"No offensive t-shirts" is not the same thing as being banned lol

If the offending element is one's personality or one's beliefs, then yes, one can come back by removing that, but it's the same thing as not coming back.

Removing a tweet and removing a belief are two very different things.

Not really: we see on Reddit all the time how subreddits quickly descend into herds that can only upvote accepted ideas and instantly downvote to oblivion or ban anything even neutral (much less antagonistic to the subreddit’s worldview).

Anybody who comes by with a different take immediately loses interest in the group and so there’s a self-perpetuating system that makes the group more and more fanatical about right-think and wrong-think.

On Twitter, deleting tweets for wrong-think has largely the same chilling effect and self-perpetuating descent into an echo chamber.

"deleting tweets for wrong-think"

When did this happen? Are you referring to tweets that promote anti-semetism like Ye's? Or to tweets advocating for political violence, like Trump's?

See: Basically everyone who was suggesting the Wuhan virology lab was a plausible source for a virus originating in Wuhan.

You're not removing your belief

"You cannot believe in Christianity" and "You cannot hold mass in my house" are two very different statements.

How about if AT&T said “you cannot pray over our telephone lines”? Because that seems closer to what’s happening here.

Twitter have almost 400 million users. It's not "your house" at this point, it's public space.

So at what number of attendees does my house become public space?

Never because you own it and have rights just like the Supreme Court has established that most private businesses has the right to kick people out. If people don't like that then they should petition the government to take over Twitter and make it a utility or government service.

No shirt, no shoes, no service.

It seems you're coming at it from the other side. If it were up to me, I'd remove the "lock" feature that seems too much like a struggle session (as noted in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33371795), and just have tweets be taken down without needing users to admit guilt. I also would oppose banning either Kanye or the Bee.

But if someone is arguing that it was a ban, and that it shows Musk unbanned them and is lying, then that's wrong. I was addressing that argument.