Censorship isn't the answer; lawfare is, how to restrain the Technocrats

Libertarians are all atwitter about the idea of the government regulating Facebook, Twitter, etc.

However a law stating that monopolies like those can only censor content based on criminal activity in no way infringes the the rights of those companies.  Back in the old days when there was one phone company would anyone have thought that a law saying that the phone company couldn't deny service to people because those people held beliefs that the company didn't like would be wrong?

Such a law wasn't needed because the phone company back then was a platform, it didn't censor views it didn't like.

But today companies that are shielded from lawsuits because they are supposedly content neutral platforms are denying service to customers who dare to hold views that the company's management don't like.

It's unclear how a law that says that private individuals who provide a monopoly service can't discriminate would be a step towards government overreach or a reduction in the freedom of Americans.

But if that bothers some people there is an even less intrusive solution.  A law recognizing that Facebook et al have become publishers who control the content of their service not platforms which do not control the content would open the tech giants up to thousands of law suits by random non-public people.

Every time some leftists posted lies  about a conservative--they're racist, they're homophobic, etc--the conservative could sue for libel. Because the conservative isn't a public figure they'd be much more likely to win the law suit.

Facebooks profits would die through the death of a thousand cuts.  At some point the shareholders would say that they were no longer willing to lose money in order to subsidize the political biases of Facebook employees.

The important point is that demanding that a company has an effective monopoly can't censor views it doesn't like is in fact in keeping with American tradition.