True but telephone is a common carrier and therefore bound by different law regarding the requirement that they provide their service to all members of the publ

True but telephone is a common carrier and therefore bound by different law regarding the requirement that they provide their service to all members of the public. The history of precisely how they ended up as common carriers I'm not entirely sure... But I think it has something to do with the fact that they had to get municipalities and communities to agree to let them run wires through their towns. Internet forum services did not have to make any such agreements because they're just sites on the internet.