> 2. This idea that you're being deplatformed or marginalised because years of your archives are no longer available in a free and easily accessible format from someone else is not supported by call outs to MLK, Malcolm X, etc. Even if you accept the idea that they had free and unfettered access to public broadcasting (ha!), there was absolutely no easy way to get access to the archives of that on demand! The speakers themselves, and their organisations, had to manage that.

There wasn't? I remember going through the catalogs in the public library as a kid, looking at the microfilm, even listening to some audio recordings. Even a public library had loads of information, and the thought of it being made inaccessible on an arbitrary whim was unthinkable. Sure, it's not comparable to the reach of today's instant broadcast via Internet, but it was the equivalent of the time.

Maybe in the time of Jim Crow or something certain public libraries would censor this stuff. I honestly don't know. It just seems to not jibe with my experience as a kid getting information at the library.