My reasoning is that it's not really different from the past. Heavy corporate control of communications media isn't new, it predates the internet. Yet people still find ways to get their rants seen and heard, then..and now.

I concede that companies can make it harder. Hard to really stamp it out though.

And that's fine. I think I lean toward your reasoning, more or less. Though what I WANT to do is take concerns about consolidated media seriously while also undercutting the free-speech argument that seems backward-engineered specifically just to defend trolling.

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.