The question was whether a private cable operator that runs public-access channels on behalf of a municipality is acting as a private platform, or as a "state a

The question was whether a private cable operator that runs public-access channels on behalf of a municipality is acting as a private platform, or as a "state actor". In the case of public access cable channels, they are just one alternative out of many for the information they cover. The question of whether an entity is a state actor is somewhat peripheral to the question of Free Speech in the world of 2019. What if the latest and greatest media technology was the printing press, and only one company made printing presses that were worth a damn, and they never sold but only leased their presses, and they only leased them to Republicans? OctoPressCo wouldn't be a state actor. However, they would be exercising power of such magnitude that it doesn't make a difference. All the while, OctoPressCo and its supporters would be saying, there's still Free Speech. You can always just distribute manually hand-written newspapers, pamphlets, and books! Viral spread and discovery through social media are a game changing media technology. The people who control a small number of mega-corporations want to grant this power preferentially to a certain political party, while choking it off from big swathes of the population and entire demographics they deem less worthy. That's not democratic, it's oligarchic. It's also going against the spirit of Free Speech!