> Would you really prefer to have the US government decide what can and cannot be censored?

Seems fair- after all it is voted by all citizens, not just by the ones that make more noise. Also, there are the citizens' representatives in the parliament, who openly discuss issues and try to establish widely agreed-upon rules.

Seems completely against the rules. If there's anything the First Amendment applies to, it's the government limiting speech.

Fair as well, but then you have to decide: it's either the democratically elected government that sets the boundaries of the free speech, or it's private monopolies that do the same, without anyone's oversight. For some reason (but most probably just because there is a temporary alignment between them and the choices of those monopolies) most US users of HN seem to be fine with censors of free speech being private, undemocratic entities.