You have a good point that a private monopoly can ultimately limit public rights like free speech. If there's no alternative provider that is willing to host hate speech, you can't broadcast it in that form.

I can think of three ways to provide for that:

1. Public servers, possibly sponsored by the govt

2. Regulation of Internet access run by private companies

3. Waiting for private competition to create such a space

The first one worked well in the early days of the Internet. There were lots of rules against commercial use of publicly-funded computers but little content regulation. Despite what some may think about the govt, it has lost most times it has attempted to limit free speech.

Regulation sort of works for railroads and telecom lines. Bell gets a monopoly on wiring but they have to provide access to disabled people, can't do discriminatory pricing, etc.

The last one is least likely to succeed. I don't know of any private US company that advertises themselves as "no takedown unless required by court order". It seems there is little profit advantage in marginalized speech compared to the cost of defending against attacks on it.

While it's good to see Ipredator and BayImg providing services with this kind of guarantee, the fact that such an effort only seems possible in Sweden should give us pause.

https://www.nearlyfreespeech.net/ is one I can think of.

You aren't contractually bound when you use bizarre routers and wires, but your ISP probably holds you to a similar agreement. Also, you can do whatever you want until you get shut down, but a court of law will see it from the contract side. You can feel free to say whatever you want using your own resources, but if you're using someone else's and they don't like what you're doing, then tough shit.

I demand the immediate use of your HN account to make fun of your understanding how how our Constitution works. Free speech.

You have your own HN account and I will do nothing to prevent you from poking fun of whatever you want.

Well, yes. One of the great things about the internet is that its regulation, as compared to other industries is relatively light. The flip side of that is that the government has little or no legal basis to ensure that people have a platform from which to speak.