The company is a contractual arrangement between people, and thus any restrictions on it is a restriction on the rights of the people who own it, i.e. the shareholders.
Being publicly traded only means that a centralized regulatory gatekeeper lifted the prohibition on people trading its securitized equity. This is a right that all companies should have by default, and not a state of affairs that should impose special restrictions on the company.
You've forgotten what "limited liability" means. The contractual arrangement between individuals is usually accounted as a "partnership".
(also, taking the position that it's just a cloud of individuals is worse for them in this case, since that would enable every employee who disabled chat saving to be jailed for contempt of court)
Limited liability only confers extra-contractual benefits to the shareholders in the case of tort against parties which hadn't contracted with the offending party.
Before limited liability laws into effect, limited liability "already emerged through free contracting". [1]
The common law version comes without the problematic 'limited liability for tort' element that limited liability statutes introduce.
