Web hosting comapnies have rules too. Even VPS and public cloud companies have content rules for what you can do with VPS.

So you have to do some kind of server hosting, and make sure your ISP will not take you down for content.

So this turns out to be a bit more involved than "set up your own website".

Also, your statement is not completely true. Phone companies are not allowed to police content of your communications, for example, even if they are private.

While in theory you aren't losing that ability, in practice most people can't afford to.

Maybe I can use my neighbor's power to operate a giant billboard with my personal views? I mean, it's not cheap, but I really think my POV deserves the largest possible platform.

Anything less is effectively my neighbor censoring me.

> Set up your own website and host the content. Nobody is removing that ability.

In practice, things might not be that simple.

And this is a strawman anyway, there are plenty of sites that let you post video content without these same sorts of policies.

And if they don't have the network effects of YouTube, boo hoo.

You can ask users to pay for it just like Netflix, New York Times etc do. Or have advertising.

But of course just like YouTube you then need to factor in their needs.

As a user, I am certainly interested in which advertisers are promoting more content controls. That would be quite a service. Nothing is expected to be provided here.

Cast your own copper.

Make your own country.

It's always the argument of the censors that you can just move to the next layer. Then push for censorship of that as well. `for (;;)`.

And when there's no place to retreat to, because they're literally telling you "no wrongthink allowed on my planet", you won't have any means left to complain.

It would be illegal for companies to do this, and governments certainly can tell private companies not to discriminate against certain classes when hiring. Google, meanwhile, is not breaking the law by choosing what content is hosted on their platform and under what circumstances.

You're presenting a false dichotomy here because Google is not a state, it is a private company, and because content creators are not a government whose laws Google must follow, but rather are themselves bound by Google's terms of service, which grant Google absolute, irrevocable and arbitrary power over their accounts, content, visibility and monetization.

No, but again, that would already be illegal, whereas Google demonetizing content due to violence is not.

Moderating or banning content for any reason is not equivalent to discrimination against a protected class, but fair enough - "absolute, irrevocable, and arbitrary" regarding content and accounts, where legal.

My characterization of the rights Google has over user supplied content versus the rights users have over Google is still far more accurate than not.

That would be true for some other private company, but I'm not sure this libertarian attitude is applicable to Google/Alphabet - it holds immense power over the 'net nowadays, I bet it can kill any emerging competitor.