Not entirely true. If your business functions as a "public square" then it can be held to the 1A standard: https://www.nytimes.com/1983/03/20/nyregion/right-to-distrib...

That was a state court talking about a state constitution, not a federal one. It had nothing to do with the first amendment to the US constitution.

So let me get this straight. Government is restricted from preventing the free exchange of ideas, but private industry is not. However, government is free to mandate us to stay in our homes and not see anybody, thus leaving us with privately owned telecommunications companies as the only way to communicate with others, and they are free to prevent speech.

Wow... funny how this all works out so convienently.

But really this is dystopia level rhetoric. "Your freedom to speech is not really being restricted. It's just that because you're locked in your house (since being outside talking to your friend is apparently not a fundamental freedom), you can't actually talk to anyone because your private sector companies say so."

Tech company executives are being summoned into congressional hearings about it and pressured by the government to censor speech. The fact that the government, congress no less, is pressuring a private entity to do this constitutes the government itself censoring speech. This is just the pressure we know about.

"But the hearing instead left Facebook, Google and Twitter facing conflicting pressures -- from Democrats who say they should patrol their sites and services more aggressively and Republicans who felt the companies should have a more hands-off role with most political speech."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/10/28/twitter...

Anyone that wants to hear about how the election was a fraud can still watch any number of right leaning media outlets to get their fill. I'll be concerned when the government actually tries to shut down right or left leaning media outlets.

>I'll be concerned when the government actually tries to shut down right or left leaning media outlets.

Social media sites are shutting down left and right wing media outlets in the form of YouTube, Twitter, etc. These sites are getting pressure form the government to do so. The "press" was never supposed to be a large corporate entity with a cozy relationship with the government. The "press" is supposed to be a citizen press.

“Whatever a patron desires to get published is advertising; whatever he wants to keep out of the paper is news”