Competition for fringe discussion exists today so our society is healthy (thank goodness). If a true monopoly is allowed to form in these platforms, we will have a big problem. Thankfully we have anti-compete laws. Unfortunately it feels like we are flirting with monopolies when vertically integrated companies like Apple and Google have a very large market share (from Android to YouTube, as you mention).
My favourite Sci Fi that deals with that dystopian future is a little-known show called Continuum. The oligarchy begins when governments go bankrupt and get bailed out by corporations in exchange for political power in the form of a "corporate congress". Fantastic show. Still sticks with me.
That's true. That "somewhere" might become TOR because everything else is well regulated. In the end, you can technically also always meet like minded people in your basement to do whatever the government doesn't want you to do in public, so there's always "somewhere" ;)
We're already there and we didn't need to enter a dystopia. All big platforms (Google's YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, you name it) follow the same exact lines on politics and speech.
(btw, funny that the English UK dictionary from Chrome doesn't include the word dystopia ;P)
You know, this is a really interesting observation. Oftentimes in these debates about moderation, people argue that you can't do it because these platforms are already de-facto public platforms. Meanwhile, in this thread's conversation, the main argument seems to be that pushing people off mainstream platforms won't work because they'll enjoy the exact same opportunities at another platform.
That doesn't imply a contradiction from any particular person, as long as they only embrace one argument or the other. But both have been used in defense of Not Moderating Trolls, and both can't be right.
I concede that companies can make it harder. Hard to really stamp it out though.
If we can all agree (not that we should, but if we DID agree) that there are platforms that are de-facto public spaces, and we want to take away their ability to moderate the way they currently do, then let's work to make them actual public utilties/spaces/whatevers, so that the standards they are subjected to are formalized and not pushed and pulled by weird momentary energies of this or that internet controversy.
Or work to decentralize them, again, so that the issue of how moderation happens isn't just attached to this weirdly specific cultural moment where it's hard to figure out the sincerity of the motivations.
Or just reject the whole argument outright.
I do agree, though, that Google and others wield a lot of power by being able to permaban a whole account/person for an alleged incident on just one of their platforms. Where "banned on YouTube" means, for example, that your Android phone no longer works.