Sure. If you build a new phone OS, twitter and facebook can try to stop you by not writing apps for it, or possibly even detecting that a user of your hardware is trying to visit them and block the connection. Same difference.

When apple blocks an app for nebulous reasons (such as the hey.com debacle), that's annoying. When google blocks an app because the authors are running a bitcoin miner or other scam, then everybody rejoices. When the microsoft phone blocks an app because it lets you screenshare to machines running linux or apple's OS, people reach for the phone to call their lawyer or representative to start proceedings on anti-trust. When the linux phone blocks an app because they are legally obligated to do this, as a judge has informed them they are compelled to do so because the app is a marketplace for murder contracts, I think most people rejoice as well.

There is no absolute rule to make sense of that. It's what society, preferably, but not neccessarily codified in law, is going to stand for. It's not an easy rule. "Prevent companies from banning anything for any reason" means you end up with marketplaces for murder and viruses/miners/user-hostile stuff. And no cheating by allowing google to paste big warnings on an app download. Who decides what text is in that warning, and who decides which user-hostile stuff warrants this banner? Apple? We're right back to where we started.

If outlawing censorship is not feasible (or it is, but you're going to have to tell me how, because the obvious route leads to far greater problems), then the only other option I can think of is to break up these companies. Ensure there are many.

This also does not work. One of the better examples of this, is the internet itself: You'd think _anyone_ can host _whatever_ they want, and unless it is clearly deeply criminal, you can find somebody to host it for you. In countries with creative laws if you must.

Except, that's just not how it works. There are about 8 major CDNs on the planet. If they all decide they want nothing to do with you, it is very hard to host stuff. 8kun and co run into this problem from time to time. At least one of these CDNs is acutely aware of the grave responsibility and blogs about their struggles with it. Do you allow a hate-spewing platform inciting crimes, or do you become judge jury and executioner on speech?

Perhaps 8 is enough, but 2 is not enough. So, if the plan is to split up these companies, how many phone platforms are legally required? How much can they work together? Should the US codify into law that it is illegal to buy an iPhone if apple's marketshare exceeds 50% (as iOS is the most popular platform in the US, just naming as an example). Should a country find social networks and start handing out fines if too many within it use the same marketplace?

I get the concern, but without more detail, you're engaging in something I find rather problematic: Pointing at an incredibly complicated problem, making a pithy statement about how bad that is, but then not naming a solution to this problem, and insinuating the solution is easy (maybe I'm imagining it, but the drama of your conclusion, whilst perhaps warranted, sure does sound like a "somebody should DO something" kinda claim. It disregards the complex nature of trying to address the issue).

So, let me turn it around: Okay. Yes, this is a bit scary, I agree.

What do we do about it?