No one is forcing Google or their employees to write hate speech on a cake or an app though, that's a pretty massive difference in analogies. Nor are people asking for a free-for-all where Google can't delete any speech on their platforms.

People were fine when they were deleting spam and had a limited content restriction policies against things like directly promoting violence or posting gore/cp and other obvious tier stuff.

I haven't heard many people pushing for governments to force Google et al to not be able to delete things from their platforms either - outside of some tiny fringes who don't understand how the internet works.

Which is therefore still consistently pro-freedom. Likewise compelled speech + censorship of an arbitrary and ever expanding list of wrongthink is consistently authoritarian.

I really don't see the contradiction in either of these worldviews.

It's the classic centralized top-down puppet-mastery of individuals choices vs embracing the chaos of freedom of individual choice (within some limited boundaries). This battle has been waged for as long as society has been around and is a natural side-effect of power structures.

I'm not saying all people making such arguments are making consistent arguments, but there's a consistent argument to be had that being forced to say (or write) something (say on a cake) and being forced to not say (or write) something are both compulsions in communication, and to be opposed to all compulsions in communication (to the positive or negative). I've heard several people argue that a cake shop should be compelled to sell a cake to a gay couple, but shouldn't be compelled to write two same-genedered names on it or compelled to craft a plastic figurine of two grooms or two brides for the top. I've heard it argued that if the gay couple wants "Susan and Jeff" and a little figurine of a bride and groom, or any other artistic expressions they'd do for a strait couple should be compellable, but the government shouldn't be able to compel artistic expressions or writing.

Now, I'd boycott the hell out of such an establishment, but as an abstract argument, I think compelled expression is a bad idea. It's really not that huge a step from compelled expression to re-education camps.

Twitter's service isn't that they write 140 character prose for you, and YouTube's service isn't that they create videos to your specification. It would be hypocritical to demand that YouTube be forced to create a custom video to your specifications (or a ghost writer forced to write a book for someone with whom they disagree) and yet the cake shop shouldn't be forced to write two same-gendered names on a cake. These people arguing against forced cake lettering aren't arguing for forced book creation or forced video creation.

Once again, refusing to make a gay wedding cake makes you a jerk and worthy of boycotting, but there is a consistent argument to be made simultaneously against forced expression and against forced silence.

Yeah, not so much.

The difference is in the legal definition of protected class. It is illegal to discriminate against someone based on their membership of a protected class -- ethnicity or disability for instance.

Removing an opinion or banning a user based on violation of an agreed upon term of service is not the same thing. Having an opinion does not make you a member of a protected class, and a private corporation is free to allow you or disallow you from use of their services to broadcast that opinion. Newspapers have been doing this since the dawn of print. Google could not, for example, ban someone for being Jewish.

You can argue about whether sexual orientation deserves status as a protected class, but it is disingenuous to claim that the two are the same thing under the law. It is a false equivalency.

You could make the argument that the "socially liberal" side that wants to censor hate speech, but protect gay people from discrimination is logically consistent.

A social liberal could argue on the point of protecting the rights of a marginalized minority. By censoring (for example) calls for violence, social liberals are protecting the safety of the targeted group. By requiring a cake shop to serve gay couples (or interracial couples, to throw in another example), social liberals are protecting a marginalized minority's access to services.

Google removing apps with spam/malware is one thing, & not something people would actually complain about. That also doesn't apply to removing the fediverse apps. They don't contain malware, they're simply alternative social networks. If they're going to remove them for having content they consider inappropriate or whatever excuse they're using, they need to remove other social media apps like facebook & twitter, because they certainly both have plenty of that too. Otherwise it just looks like an attempt to remove competitors to facebook/twitter. I also don't see what this has to do with a business refusing to make a cake. Businesses do have a right to refuse service. In this case if you're going to remove apps claiming they violate a specific violation, but don't remove other apps which will also inevitably be in violation the same way, it's reasonable for people to question it.

I have to say I generally agree with you that when someone points out a contradiction in some common political stance, the reverse of that contradiction exists in the opposite stance. It seems pretty common, though it generally results from distilling a more complex view into a simplified statement (which may edge into the territory of creating men of straw).

How so?

The first hypocrisy is the defense of the right of a business to make arbitrary decisions w.r.t. service (not bake the cake), while simultaneously demanding that the business not have the power to refuse service (condemning private censorship).

The reverse position is not hypocritical in the same way, because condemning discrimination against customers on LGBT grounds is not at odds with censoring discriminatory speech - in fact, the two positions are aligned.

You could try to argue that private censorship is itself a form of discrimination, but most people who hold the second position would not concede that the people who practice hate speech are a minority worthy of protection - so for them, no discrimination is occurring.

An electricity company is a utility however. They're a natural monopoly in a way that a "website" can't be

If [large social media platform] doesn't want that kind of content, it's not unreasonable to simply make one to soak up that "ignored" market segment. Reddit can't shut you down for hosting your own internet forum for instance

Its custom designed cake. That baker has been sued yet again because he refused to bake a trans-themed birthday cake.

I don't believe he has a problem selling cakes to anyone, just that he refused to design cakes with themes.

It was the first one that came to mind, forgive me.

The basic thesis of my analogy was "you want 'free speech' forced upon private companies, but also want to allow them the freedom to dictate what content they allow under their 'brand'"