We must have different definitions of steelman. I have always understood steelman to be the opposite of strawman. To argue with the strawman of their argument is arguing a weaker version of the argument than the one they're really making - i.e. "I assume because they didn't mention any other administrations, they must be some dumb idiot who only thinks this happened during the last administration", while arguing the steelman is arguing against the strongest version of the argument they're trying to make - i.e. "sure, that poster didn't mention other administrations, but let's give them the benefit of the doubt - if we asked them whether they'd support similar surveillance done by the Obama admin or Bush admin, I'd be willing to guess they'd say no, I bet they're just expressing frustration about the left's unwillingness to acknowledge the Biden admin's big tech collusion, even if their real qualm is with the surveillance itself, not the partisan coverage of it".
I personally detest covert surveillance and social influence operations being waged by taxpayer-funded organizations (regardless of whether public or private in nature) against their own citizenry, and I oppose this across the political aisle. I think it reeks of institutions that distrust and fear us more than they represent our collective interests, and that's an ugly mindset unbecoming of a government or enterprise that publicly paints itself as a champion of free and open democracy on the world stage, regardless of whether it's an intelligence agency or an international social media platform. But I also recognize that it's bipartisan, and that most people seem to care more about deploying force against the other side than they do about reducing the amount of force that is deployed against all of us.
ie - Strawman is to argue an easy to refute point they're not making. Whether that point is stronger or weaker is irrelevant. The key is you came prepared to refute the point. Steelman is to argue the point they're making.
But we're getting into irrelevant semantics at this point. Neither the poster's point, nor mine centered on the definitions we have of steelman or strawman.
My material point was on the tendency of people to embed what amount to using quasi-religious scripture quotations in discussions of completely non-religious problem areas. To the point of making it difficult for any, uh, "non-believers", out there to make any progress towards improvements.
I personally detest covert surveillance and social influence operations being waged by taxpayer-funded organizations (regardless of whether public or private in nature) against their own citizenry, and I oppose this across the political aisle. I think it reeks of institutions that distrust and fear us more than they represent our collective interests, and that's an ugly mindset unbecoming of a government or enterprise that publicly paints itself as a champion of free and open democracy on the world stage, regardless of whether it's an intelligence agency or an international social media platform. But I also recognize that it's bipartisan, and that most people seem to care more about deploying force against the other side than they do about reducing the amount of force that is deployed against all of us.
Where does your definition of steelman come from?