> I'm in favor of internet access being considered a public utility or even government funded; nobody should be "deplatformed" from basic internet access. Assum

> I'm in favor of internet access being considered a public utility or even government funded; nobody should be "deplatformed" from basic internet access. Assuming that's the case, I don't see what's stopping Parler from setting up a server. This raises a really interesting question about where the line between regulated utility and free commerce should be drawn. I generally agree with what you've written in your post, and struggle to come up with an answer. For some of the reasons you mention, I think that I think Facebook and Twitter and the various App Stores generally belong on the "free commerce" side of that line. But what about DNS providers and ISPs? What about browser vendors and certificate authorities? And in particular, what about AWS? I could imagine a world in which DNS providers and ISPs are regulated and cannot deny service without a court order, and in which AWS ends up straddling this: EC2 + Route53 get regulated, but S3 and on up are treated as unregulated free-commerce businesses. As an aside, I'm really surprised that the Parler team didn't defend against this by hosting with multiple providers. Given their positioning, it seems like a pretty obvious risk. I wonder if that's an oversight / miscalculation, or if they made a decision that getting de-platformed at some point would be a good thing for their long-term brand / agenda.