I read your whole comment and I’m not calling for completely free speech like yelling “fire” in a theater.

I just find it odd that you brought up government like it’s relevant to free speech and censorship by corporations. I’m genuinely curious as to maybe you think corporations censoring speech is appropriate. And I like this forum to be able to ask.

In my mind, I don’t want the phone company bleeping me out when I curse. Or disconnecting my service because they think I might be buying drugs. Phone companies are regulated by government to legally require these kinds of free speech requirements. But that doesn’t mean I can crank call people, or spam people, there’s still rules.

I think my problem with these companies is that they are arbitrary in their restrictions. And they seem biased politically.

Perhaps they aren’t biased. But similarly, while being required to show ID to vote may seem reasonable, in practice it discriminated against certain political parties.

Ah but it didn’t used to be like this.

Correct, but how people use the web has changed over time. Content and interaction was also far less centralized. I had to dig for specific channels on IRC to find the kind of hateful discussion I can find in 5 seconds on Twitter. There was far less spam and noise in those days.

Many of us run an ad blocker in our browser. Is this not censorship of certain types of speech?

I block ads to not be tracked, subjected to malware and unwanted annoyances. I do not block ads to censor speech.

Censorship needn't be the primary motivator for it to occur.

It’s not a motivator at all and your argument is invalid. Secondly, hiding things on your own screen is not censorship, hiding things on someone else’s screen is.