American private companies aren't forced to censor these things by the government, they are leveraging their own freedom to operate their business with respect to their own prerogatives.
It is not reasonable compare a company choosing not to host content that hurts marginalized people, with a company being forced not to host content critical of the most powerful people.
I disagree; I'd even say this is a peculiar blind spot in US political culture. Practically, it's probably easier to have a similar life in a non-US country than to have a similar life while avoiding these big platforms. Yes theoretically the US government has the ability to use violence against you while Twitter doesn't, but that doesn't seem to make a lot of difference to the practical impact - people are more worried about the government ruining their livelihood than locking them up, and that's something that Twitter can do just as well.
