Very much this. I have been rightfully corrected by dang before, and it made me reflect and adjust my general approach to commenting online. I have also been very wrongfully dealt with a few times too though, and it made me very hesitant to comment further. I am thankful for a moderated space (there are other areas for unmoderated space, but those are under attack these days) and they do a good job most of the time, which is good enough for me.
The backbone companies thing is the more important point you make imho, and is why discussion about what the modern public square really is and how the level of corporate dominance of media and the abuse of third-party doctrine allows the silencing of dissent. So a private company can censor whoever they want right?.. but how far does that go? First it starts with cloudflare, and then eventually it goes down to the ISP level... and that seems like a very dangerous slippery slope to me.
The backbone companies thing is the more important point you make imho, and is why discussion about what the modern public square really is and how the level of corporate dominance of media and the abuse of third-party doctrine allows the silencing of dissent. So a private company can censor whoever they want right?.. but how far does that go? First it starts with cloudflare, and then eventually it goes down to the ISP level... and that seems like a very dangerous slippery slope to me.