also i thought conservatives were the ones who supported businesses being able to decide for themselves what to allow...? unless you arent a conservative and are a libertarian or something.
The official, non-hypocritical standpoint (as I understand it), requires that you first understand the difference between a public company and a private company.
Public companies are more or less owned by their stockholders, in some cases these can be the people in charge of said company (see Steve Jobs); however as public companies they are beholden to far more restrictions on what rights they can and cannot restrict and what standards they have to adhere to for their staff and consumers.
Private companies are owned by individuals, usually just one fellow (the boss). These companies are not beholden to the public will, and can therefore do a lot more of whatever they want as far as consumer and employee restrictions go; they still have to adhere to some basic decency laws, but are more free to self determine.
The big tech giants are all public companies. The argument is that given that these companies are publically traded, and that they provide what could be described as a "public forum"... This means that freedom of speech cannot be infringed or censored in such an environment. And it means that they should not be removing opposing viewpoints or trying to police opinions.
Meanwhile private companies should have all the freedoms to self determine what they will and will not tolerate within their confines. The idea being that general market forces will keep them in line.
....
I imagine there's also probably something related to monopolistic power somewhere in there as well; but I wouldn't know.
There's an interesting post by Badspot somewhere talking about his take on the issue that might be interesting food for thought if you wanted some other ways to look at things.