[_jal]

On your second point, there will always be power structures. You can't not have them, when considering realistic arrangements made of humans.

So now what?

Is the complaint really that the gatekeepers are different than they were 30 or 100 years ago?

Or that there is no realistic alternative that could have acted, citing some authority you find more agreeable, in an effective timeframe?

[gfodor]

I would have much preferred if this action occurred due to a legal order, not a few CEOs making unilateral decisions. If they were bound to go through a form of due process before nuking people off of the Internet based upon speech which is assumed to be illegal, my guess is it would be much less likely to be abused. It certainly seems like such a system would have worked just fine in this situation and could be made extremely efficient.

I've argued for years having a few companies mediate all consequential human communication was going to be a big problem, so this happening to wake people up of the dangers isn't a surprise to me but just another stage of the process of people realizing it.