I agree with your comment but find it rambling, so I’ll concur with this: If free speech is a right worth protecting from the government, it’s worth protecting against equally powerful corporations.
> If free speech is a right worth protecting from the government, it’s worth protecting against equally powerful corporations.
The right of free speech is that you can say what you want without violent repercussions, such as fines, prison time, or capital punishment. Corporations and individuals already aren't allowed to do any of that, so no additional protection is needed. Governments are singled out specifically because they do not follow the same rules as everyone else—asserting that violence is a "legitimate" means of achieving arbitrary goals.
> The right of free speech is that you can say what you want without violent repercussions, such as fines, prison time, or capital punishment.
This is merely one view of free speech; many people actively disagree with this view.
You can't take a contested human-defined concept like freedom of speech and say "this only means X, case closed." I mean, you can, but nobody has to agree with you.
The view that free speech should protect you even from the most trivial consequences like being banned from a private platform is completely unreasonable and ridiculous. Doesn't matter that there are people that hold that opinion, that's a weak argument for it.
> the most trivial consequences like being banned from a private platform
You say these consequences are trivial, but they may not be trivial for every individual. A number of individuals have been banned from multiple platforms, including their revenue streams and parts of the financial system, seriously damaging them financially. Even when I disagree with the individuals being banned, something about this strikes me as wrong. It should not be possible to mount a coordinated attack on an individual's financial stability like this. The boogeyman of the moment is the right, but this will surely be turned against individuals on the left the next time we go to war, or perhaps the next time left-populism seems to be gaining serious ground.
A lot of people combine free speech with anti-discrimination. Speech get attached to identity and from there a ban becomes discrimination.
Three people walk into a Hotel. A priest, a advocate for the left, and a advocate for the right. Each three talks about the groups they define as "us", and how bad those "others" are. Can the hotel owner deny hosting and ban one of them based on the identity and vies of the person?
> If free speech is a right worth protecting from the government, it’s worth protecting against equally powerful corporations.
But corporations' ability to decide what to host is guaranteed by freedom of speech. Remember, freedom of speech is not just freedom to say what you want it's also freedom from compelled speech. It's the freedom from the government telling you to make or host speech. Mandating that corporations host speech they don't want is not protecting freedom of speech, it is violating freedom of speech.
