Modeling them as independent businesses that can decide — based on any non-protected principle they choose — to censor speech is too generic to be useful. They are closer to telephone or radio or broadcast TV companies than to private enterprise as an overarching category. Communication business are, of course, regulated around what they can and cannot say on air (the broadcast ones, specifically), and we probably need a similar approach to handling social media.

Yet we do not treat them like regulated broadcast media, which I guess is unsurprising in that regulation lags behind technology. In the context of Parler, it seems they tried to make the best of a bad situation.

But I don't know that we should cheer this as "the right outcome", even if, in this case, it seems justified (my gut is that this was the right thing to do, in this specific case). It's time to ask broader questions around whether these companies should have that power at all, or if we need government to step in.