They're not public squares though, they're privately owned webservers, they don't become nationalized just because they're popular. That's like saying the dive-bar in your local town is the de-facto town-square because everyone meets there after work. Those individuals made the free choice to interact in a privately owned establishment thus they are subject to the rules of that establishment, if they don't like the rules they are free to go to another establishment with more favorable rules.

> A clique of companies is now in the position of censoring the vast majority of interpersonal speech, period.

100% false. They are within their rights to refuse to rebroadcast content you upload to the servers they own, but they cannot prevent you from rebroadcasting your content anywhere else.

> We could regain society's Freedom of Speech

Freedom of speech existed before Facebook and Twitter, so your suggestion that their business practices have caused free speech to go away is incorrect.

> So perhaps you're focused on the technicality because you want to work towards that - and please do! But state it constructively rather than dismissively. It helps nobody to perpetuate a stubborn idea that there is some kind of strict distinction between USG and the S&P 500

This is pretty hilarious. You're suggesting I self-censor the "technical" truth in favor of your editorialized version of the truth because "it helps nobody to perpetuate a stubborn idea that there is some kind of strict distinction between USG and the S&P 500"... even though there is a very obvious "strict distinction" between the government using the threat of force to censor speech vs a private company operating a platform they own and pay for.

> Whether the political bureaucracy controls corporations or corporations control bureaucracy, it's all government.

So are you saying you want to ban corporate lobbying or that we should nationalize large influential corporations so that we can ensure they function in service of the people instead of share holders?

There is a huge distinction. Facebook doesn't have a military to enforce their policies. They might be the defacto town square but it's only convenience and network effects which make that true. If there was enough dissatisfaction with the way they are running things then they could be gone tomorrow. That's not comparable to kind of censorship that, for example, the CCP imposes.