You seem to be suggesting that by curating the content on their platform, Google is losing (or should be losing) their section 230 protections. This is simply wrong.
If I have a blog, and I ban someone from commenting, I don't lose my 230 protections. Even though I've 'de-platformed' someone from my blog. Google is no different than a blog, just scaled up.
He is saying that any hit not on the first two pages of google's search results, doesn't exist, and is therefore being deplatformed?
That's a ludicrous position. Those hits do very much exist, and google will display to you each result in turn hoping you find something to click on. If his argument is taken at face value, the vast majority of hits, on every search term, for every user, is being deplatformed. That's just not the case. You can't really say you're being deplatformed, because you're not on the first page.
When I refer to deplatforming I’m talking about users and opinions being banned from the plaftorms (YouTube, Twitter, FB, etc).
When I’m referring to search engine results what I’m saying is that Google is promoting a few selected sites over others based on a undisclosed criteria. The undisclosed criteria here is what makes a world of difference.
By not making it clear they are picking winners and that should not happen.
On my blog I'm free to delete any comment I like, and I'm not beholden to the government to explain why I did it. That's simply the Constitution at work. How big, in your opinion, does a publisher need to be in order for their First Amendment protections against forced speech to be stripped away?
Anti monopoly laws, would be one. You can say whatever you want, you'll just have your platform split in smaller pieces to avoid harming the average individual.
If you disclose the criteria, people game it. Any ‘objective’ scheme you come up with will be overrun by scammers in weeks without constant updates from google.
Perhaps we should come up with a system where people are free to use whatever search engine they like, and the government can't tell you what search engine to use, and the government can't tell the search engines what to publish. It would be so much better than the current system where we're legally required to use Google.
You forgot Amazon, but it sounds like we've moved the goalposts from free speech to fairness for advertisers now. That's an antitrust problem, not a free speech problem.
If I have a blog, and I ban someone from commenting, I don't lose my 230 protections. Even though I've 'de-platformed' someone from my blog. Google is no different than a blog, just scaled up.