> Uhhh, if the lobbyists run the government then in a way it’s the same thing.
This makes no sense to me. Can you explain further? May be if lobbyists are trying to lobby for amending the constitution or passsing a censorship law?
I am generally with you about the private corporations censoring when its a monopoly. Google and Apple lobby for making sure they are not appearing as monopolies. The most extreme example would be a hypothetical scenario where your only ISP in the area decides to ban a website. That is effectively censorship. But, as far as I know, that is illegal in US (FCC). These aspects are very different from Chinese censorship which is absolute, very transparently enforced and openly admitted by CCP.