I'm not sure I buy into the idea here that there is government speech control from the federal government ... much at all. And certainly not what we see in China.
"Community standards" are not directed to support a particular leader, nor do they exist to suppress even silly mockery of political leaders.
The platforms have grown in influence, but they were never a free for all, and with influence comes a lot of work and responsibility that they seem willing to do when it comes to moderation, even if for their own purposes. YouTube doesn't want to host anything and everything, same with Facebook. Few if any site ever did, and those that chose to... often changed course after exposure to what being a site that hosts 'anything' actually becomes (generally, just the less desirable parts of 'anything' and the rest of the users flee).
Things change, but the idea that it was a free for all the father you go back has more to do with the fewer people on the internet, and even then there was moderation.
The subhead for that article is literally "In the debate over freedom versus control of the global network, China was largely correct, and the U.S. was wrong."
It's stunning to me to see China held up as a model for how speech in the US should be properly controlled and censored.
It matters little whether the censorship is being carried out by the state or by private actors. What matters is how effective the censorship is and the degree to which we come to accept it as "normal".
"Community standards" are not directed to support a particular leader, nor do they exist to suppress even silly mockery of political leaders.
The platforms have grown in influence, but they were never a free for all, and with influence comes a lot of work and responsibility that they seem willing to do when it comes to moderation, even if for their own purposes. YouTube doesn't want to host anything and everything, same with Facebook. Few if any site ever did, and those that chose to... often changed course after exposure to what being a site that hosts 'anything' actually becomes (generally, just the less desirable parts of 'anything' and the rest of the users flee).
Things change, but the idea that it was a free for all the father you go back has more to do with the fewer people on the internet, and even then there was moderation.