Such arrangements are not conducive to the political process, and that should worry everyone. If something can be used against someone it can also be used against you.

by putting "parking lots" in quotations, I was meaning to ask for the alternative digital equivalent to major platforms like FB and Twitter.

If we're continuing the parking lot analogy, it's like there's an almost unending grid of parking lot after parking lot, and you can travel to any of them instantaneously and for free. Some parking lots have a lot of people, so you'd rather go there if you want to be heard, but nothing is stopping you from setting up shop in an empty lot, and nothing is stopping people from visiting your lot.

Now, given that major social network advertise pretty much everywhere, this might not be an entirely fair analogy. Some parking lots have ads for them posted in every other parking lot. But it's a point worth making that access is relatively egalitarian on the internet.

Thanks for the clarification. You're right, access to the internet at large is more or less egalitarian; having your voice heard (and not hidden), is not though, and therein lies the problem.

If a tree falls on the forest, and no one is there to hear it, did it even make a noise?

Also relevant is this very interesting research experiment conducted ~5 years ago on social media manipulation, in which they dubbed the term "Censorship 2.0"

https://www.reddit.com/r/netsec/comments/38wl43/we_used_sock...

That's true, we used to think of it in terms of access, but I suppose now that anyone can figuratively start their own news network, the issue is who gatekeeps the directories rather than the access.