I'm not arguing why people choose to use YouTube, I'm arguing that it is a choice. Staying in a country is technically a choice, but as long as you live there you have no choice in your government and can't opt out of their rule.
Its very different. Our speech is protected specifically from government censorship because their control over us is a monopoly by design and their will is enforced through mechanisms like prison and military.
How many youtubes are there? How do I vote for the people running it?
I'm not conflating, I'm abstracting from artificial distinction designed to keep the loophole safe from regulation.
YouTube can censor what they want, you don't have to use it and they can't send police or military after you. You can't move to a land where a single government has control and can send police or military to impose their will on you.
Every democracy will become oligarchy eventually if we don't regulate social media. Most of them won't even be controlled domestically (because the media are global).
There's like 50 people who decide 99% of information people consume worldwide. Or at least what algorithm should decide.
These people know what power it gives. That's why it was worth it for Elon to buy Twitter. It was trading money for political power. And there's nothing anybody can do. This IS oligarchy.
I do agree, though, that media plays a large role and (should) hold a strong responsibility for where we end up.
There is - network effect.
> If people cared that YouTube was a monopoly, or if people cared enough about the moderation policies, they would go elsewhere.
They would not, because of network effects. Coordination effort required to jump ship from a billion user website is impossible to overcome. You could have all of Americans stop using youtube, and it would still have more content than whatever competitor they turn towards.
> The reason we have to specifically be protected from government censorship is because we don't realistically have that option.
There's more examples of people overthrowing a government than people succesfully boycotting a social media platform once it gets big enough.