In the US, if you don't like some company's content policies, you can, with a bit of effort, start your own company. (Whether it can generate revenue enough to support itself is a separate problem.)

In China, if you don't like the government's policies, you can try starting your own government. Good luck.

Starting your own youtube/facebook-like platform with all it's network effects is similar to starting your own government.

Youtube/facebook won't throw you in jail for creating a competitor. The government will usually take exception to you trying to start your own government on their land.

In the US if you don't like your internet provider you can shut up and keep paying because the government helped them get a localized monopoly. Google can swing regulators from "anti-trust" to "it's all good they said they would fix it". Lobbyists write legislation.

The level of corporate control in the US is disturbingly high. Ultimately they are weaker than the federal government.

And as we know:

https://scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/mgilens/fi...