To the Editor:

Re “How Facebook Controls What World Can Say” (front page, Dec. 28):

Although Facebook likes to portray itself as a neutral platform that passively mirrors the world, your article shows that Facebook exerts control over the words the world speaks. Facebook’s decisions about what people should be allowed to post are not only arbitrary, but also capricious and self-serving. No institution, particularly one that bears on democratic speech and governance, should exert such unrestricted impact.

In 1926, the Federal Radio Commission was formed to regulate radio, which had only a smidgen of the effects Facebook now has. A medium like Facebook that exerts such control over the speech of citizens in a democracy requires dispassionate, systematic oversight and regulation by government.

Richard M. Perloff
Cleveland
The writer is a professor of communication, psychology and political science at Cleveland State University.

Source: Read Full Article