Although this piece takes on Libertarians and the right, it is on the left you see such oddities as journalists for (quasi-) censorship and in regards to the platforms and other venues, the full-throated assertion of the right of free association and that rallying cry of the folks who resisted the integration of lunch counters in the late '50's - early '60's:
"But they're a private business!!!"
From Real Life Magazine, June 21:
The stranger and more heterodox factions of the right wing have long dreamed of creating a utopia to call their own, far from the draconian tax structures and governmental intrusion they see as a brake on their genius. Examples abound: There’s the Free State Project, aiming to pack New Hampshire with thousands of true believers in political autonomy in order to refashion the state as a libertarian enclave (without fully seceding from the United States, of course). There’s also “seasteading,” perhaps the most popular retreatist gambit, in which residents would live on a boat set permanently adrift in international waters. These projects come in many flavors — from unalloyed tax haven to would-be ecotopia — and draw anarcho-capitalist bona fides from supporters like Patri Friedman and Peter Thiel. Historian Raymond B. Craib memorably defined the overall seasteading vibe as “Milton Friedman and Robinson Crusoe together, reminiscing about Burning Man, on a remodeled off-shore oil rig.”
Take seasteading onshore and you get “charter cities,” a phrase usually attributed to economist Paul Romer’s 2009 TED talk. Rather than flee to the oceans for terra nova, Romer proposed that sovereign urban “polities” could be created by anyone on land, provided they find “free space.” In practice, as Ash Milton argues, these so-called cities end up looking like “special economic zones” (or SEZs). The SEZ and the charter city are both more focused on securing the greatest possible profit with least governmental oversight than anything else, but the SEZ does so in a flat, affectless way. It’s a collection of tax loopholes made material. So is a charter city, to be clear, but the venal profiteering of the SEZ is elevated to the ideological firmament: It is intended to function as proof of the efficacy of libertarian ideals. Romer himself is providing the blueprint for this vision in Honduras with a project called Próspera. Próspera’s website calls it an ”economic development platform,” which roughly translated, appears to mean part colonial outpost, part entrepôt, and part maquiladora, all strained through the blandest possible solarpunk design sensibility (and crowned with luxury residences designed by Patrik Schumacher of Zaha Hadid Architects).
....Such statements could be dismissed as vacuous Silicon Valley hype were it not for Pronomos’s heavyweight lineup of investors and advisors, including Marc Andreesen, bitcoin maven Roger Ver, Balaji Srinivasan, Taavi Kotka (the brain behind e-Estonia), and of course Peter Thiel, from whom the majority of the firm’s $9 million stake comes from.[sic]....
....MUCH MORE
For more on Srinivasan see 2014's "The Silicon Valley Secessionist Clarifies His Batshit Insane Plan" or any of the posts on 21.co
Also: "Out With Seasteading, In With Land"
If anyone wants to try this on U.S. soil, and even for the currently existing platforms: Google (YouTube), Facebook, and Twitter, they should definitely know what responsibilities large companies take upon themselves when they effectively own the town square.
A good place to start is probably the U.S. Supreme Court:
Marsh v. Alabama :: 326 U.S. 501 (1946) :: Justia US Supreme Court ...
And:
Pruneyard Shopping Ctr. v. Robins, 447 U.S. 74 (1980)
