> It means the principles that constrain how governments engage with society (e.g. free speech in the public square) should also constrain how these new government-sized institutions engage with society
I think you're missing the distinction between public and private entities.
We constrain governments because they have a defacto monoploy by law and by definition. This means there are no alternatives. Additionally, our government is granted power through its citizens, not vise versa. Rights are negative meaning the government doesn't let us say what we want, the government isn't allowed to prevent us from saying what we want.
The fact that a company is large in employees or has many users shouldn't impact its ability to moderate. Forcing private companies to not moderate in the name of the public good would be a 5A violation: seizure of private property for public use. It is different if you uniformly rescind 230, but then you kill all third party commentary on the web in general. Look at Craigslist's response to fosta/sosta, for example.
> e.g. private companies shouldn't be able to do widespread content scanning of private data that would be illegal for the government to
The government isn't allowed to do this because the Constitution forbids it. Private companies can only get your data if you transact with them.
That transact line is usually blured on the web, but there are defensive measures one can take to help evade them. The simplest of them is to choose not to use a business or service.
I don't have a meta account. I don't have a tiktok or X. In fact, I have a HN, lobsters, and Blur Dwarf account. That's it. So easy to opt out of what concerns you. Additionally, I run both clearnet domains and hidden services. While what I say on the clearnet may get me kicked off a domain registrar, that can't happen on the government-invented-and-implemented tor.
