Just because hardly anyone visits a website that aren't those private websites doesn't make them a public square. The analogy holds up IRL: most of our conversations happen on company property or in bars, and hardly anyone goes to the public square to mingle with strangers.

Interesting observation. I think that's very well put. If it's not public property it cannot be a public square where strangers can freely mingle and speak. It makes sense. If you mingle and speak out on someone else's property, they should be able to kick you out whenever they want. OTOH, private property does not necessarily mean the owner can do whatever he wants with whoever uses his property. The owner of a public space like a cafeteria cannot invite someone to leave on a whim. Yes, there's the "Rights of admission are reserved" but this is closely scrutinized and protected by law. I concede however that the consensus regarding this is not generalized [1]

Should Big Tech be accountable for all the content they publish, then? However, since they are not the authors of the content they publish, should their responsibility be something comparable to the responsibility of a traditional newspaper on its classifieds section?

[1] https://www.law.ox.ac.uk/research-and-subject-groups/propert...

This is the fulcrum point of this debate - right here.

Okay so what’s the “free speech” principle that demands sending in the government to force those websites to publish against their will?

> force those websites to publish against their will?

I would argue that the will of the websites is to actually allow publishing for the most amount of people. And they censor the opposing political views only because the government-aligned forces make them to. Basically if every corporation needs the government to survive they are going to do everything the government wants, even if they don’t admit to it. They would rather lose half the users than become completely defunct.

Why would you argue that? Do you have any evidence?