What you are asking for is to force other people to set up platforms for people to speak, which is a very different thing.
Freedom of speech has always applied to the former, but never the latter.
The average person cannot. "Just host your content on Tor" (as it was eventually suggested elsewhere) is not a solution to there being lack of an accessible online public space, when faced with private entities who will deny you hosting and domain names.
But I would like you to answer the question posed in the post you replied to (yes I know it wasn't originally addressed to you). Are you someone who believes that a place like that shouldn't exist because of the content you believe that would be posted?
But I don't think it's accurate to say that most people think these places shouldn't exist. The reality is simply that most people don't want anything to do with it. What you're witnessing is 99% of people collectively saying "not in my backyard", which leaves very little backyard for deeply unpopular views. I think that's an important distinction, even if the results are similar.
For what it's worth, I think a place for unrestricted speech should exist. I am honestly disappointed when I see calls for blanket bans, but I also understand why private platforms don't exactly aspire to bear this weight. These people and their views still exist, and ideally we as a society should confront it.
That's a bit like "if the police beats you up in public, you're still free to speak your mind in your basement" though.
Think of it like going to a coffee shop: they can’t kick you out for being Catholic or male but they can ask you to leave if you are harassing other people, not following public health codes, etc.
As in "you can't speak any more, because your website is offline". A gag is the offline equivalent.
> Think of it like going to a coffee shop
I believe that example would be more accurate if we all lived in company towns, where no public space exists and your presence, and speech, is merely tolerated under normal circumstances, but you have no right to either being there nor speaking your mind, and can be removed at any moment, should anyone "in charge" have an issue with your behavior. That also has the angle that you lose a lot more than just your ability to speak: you lose your home and need to find a new place that will take you in, need to tell everybody you know and do business with about your new address etc, like when Google shuts down your Gmail account.
> As in "you can't speak any more, because your website is offline". A gag is the offline equivalent.
Again, a private company choosing not to use their resources to support your speech is not a gag. You are still free to pick any one of thousands of other options and you are free, even encouraged, read their terms before signing any contract.
Your Gmail comparison is similarly invalid: beyond the extreme rarity of that, when you choose to accept Google’s terms for getting free email service you are, well, accepting their terms. People have chosen for decades to register their own domains to avoid needing to update addresses and outside of uncommon legal situations this will avoid needing to do so.
Right, again, there aren't thousands of other options. If you want to host your site, you need a domain. That limits yourself to a hand full of registrars. And you need somebody to transmit traffic, if you hold any kind of controversial opinion, you need DDOS-protection. That leaves you with another hand full of corporations. Otherwise you're offline, as in, unable to speak.
> People have chosen for decades to register their own domains to avoid needing to update addresses and outside of uncommon legal situations this will avoid needing to do so.
How do you handle email on your domain when the registrar decides to drop your domain? And why shouldn't it, it's a private company, it can do whatever the hell it pleases.
If you want your own domain you can check any company on this list:
https://www.icann.org/registrar-reports/accreditation-qualif...
Similarly, network capacity and servers are available from many companies around the world.
If your content is so toxic that you can’t find anyone in the world to provide even basic network connectivity, it might be time to ask whether you’re using “controversial” as a synonym for “illegal”. That happens to groups like ISIL, but even that’s not completely successful, and it’s extremely unlikely that anyone reading this has “international takedown” as a realistic threat.
Ah, the good old "only criminals have something to hide" aka "all speech that is good is free, if your speech is suppressed, it's probably evil, and evil speech should be suppressed, because it's evil". That's really not a sensible approach imho.
If the hosting company takes you down, host it yourself. If ICANN takes it down, host it on Tor.
There are always ways to bypass corporate control of speech. You may have to completely forgo the benefits provided by the corporate web sites, but nothing is stopping you from making your own platform.