Being able to write a newspaper that no one can practically (or want to) read is just a more insidious form of censorship.
In 1984 (the book), one of the tools of censorship was to actually remove words that were unfavorable from the vocabulary. In practice, while it may still be possible to express certain thoughts, if it was made impractically cumbersome to do so it has the same effect as censorship.
My blocking someone on Twitter (or Twitter banning someone) doesn’t mean that “no one can practically read their newspaper”. It means myself or Twitter have decided we don’t want to listen to or host their newspaper.
They’re welcome to continue writing their newspaper and seeking an audience. This is, in fact, the way that speech worked for the first significant percentage of time between the creation of the Bill of Rights and the current moment in time. Most people for most of that time didn’t have the ability to smash their hands on a keyboard and have the entire internet read whatever thoughts popped into their head. Attempting to retcon “free speech” to include the reach provided by commercial sites on the internet doesn’t have any grounding in reality, and being blocked or banned on those platforms is neither “insidious” nor “censorship”.
If twitter has a de-facto monopoly, and deploys a feature that makes it easy block people, then there is de-facto censorship.
Even if twitter is not technically a monopoly, it only takes a small concentration of power in these tech platforms to practice de-facto censorship.
If I point a gun to your head and tell you to denounce Biden or be shot, you’re “welcome” to take the bullet and preserve your freedom of expression, but for most people they may not be willing to make that sacrifice. Sub out bullet with some other form of de-facto removing of agency and you’ll see that just theoretically being free isn’t enough.
In China there are token parties but 1 party has de-facto control. So what does it matter if only in theory the system is multi-party? What does it matter if our system of free speech only in theory promotes free speech?
If one ideology takes hold then it can always abuse its power using de-facto censorship to suppress competing ideologies and ideas.
In an authoritarian system in China one must first overthrow the party in power to practice de-facto free speech. In our capitalist system you are suggesting one must overthrow the corporate authorities first before practicing free speech. Then impediments to free speech in both systems are the same: the people in power.
If you somehow think a communist system where the government controlling companies restricting free speech is somehow different from a system where companies controlled by powerful entities (shareholders of varying sizes) are restricting free speech then you’ve been deluded by Western propaganda.
Both are the same, and the powerless will have no agency even if they can freely yell into a vacuum.
I feel like when you’re equating “me blocking your tweets from my timeline” to “me shooting you”, there’s clearly not any shared ground here. The two are clearly not comparable. Me blocking your tweets does not remove your agency, or your freedom of expression, and it doesn’t kill you.
China doesn’t have free speech, because in China the government will punish you for speaking against them. That’s not “de facto censorship”, it’s just censorship. Which is where the government punishes you for your speech.
There’s no such thing as a “corporate authority”. Twitter doesn’t send you to a reeducation camp if you tweet dumb things. They just don’t have to carry your content on their site. The analog would be if the Chinese government ran a big blog and they’d only let you blog there if you said stuff they agreed with.
In 1984 (the book), one of the tools of censorship was to actually remove words that were unfavorable from the vocabulary. In practice, while it may still be possible to express certain thoughts, if it was made impractically cumbersome to do so it has the same effect as censorship.