Fortunately, we can take steps to reclaim online communication as a public good. That starts with countering consolidation through antitrust reform. Anti-monopoly advocate Stacy Mitchell argues that splitting corporations such as Google and Amazon into component companies could eliminate the conflicts of interest that let them unfairly disadvantage competitors — and allow a broader variety of players to shape the online world. [Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns The Post.]

For example, last year, the Nation, where I serve as publisher, joined with two other media outlets to sue Google for stifling competition in online ad sales, which many publishers rely on to survive. In excluding rival ad networks from its marketplace, Google drives up profits for itself and prices for everyone else. So the lawsuit calls on Google to divest from its ad-selling business and help create a truly free market for online advertising.

Breaking up big tech could be the beginning of a broader political project: bringing the platforms used by the public into public hands. As media expert Victor Pickard recently argued in a piece for the Nation, “Ideas for structural reform are flourishing, though you wouldn’t know it from the narrowed parameters of mainstream policy debates.” We could transfer ownership of these platforms to workers and run them as cooperatives. Or we could build a digital public infrastructure to ensure all Americans have access to and protection in their freedom of expression — in the same way that the government has handled previous communication technologies, including the telegraph, postal mail and radio. If we can have the U.S. Postal Service and PBS, why not have a public social media option and a federally owned search engine?

At a time when democracy globally — and at home — is under assault, it seems urgent to create environments that foster a vibrant, open, productive exchange of ideas. Indeed, if we don’t, Twitter could be far from the last of our public squares subject to a hostile takeover.