![]() This censorship has deleterious effects on campus and public discourse. These tools enable public universities-and other government actors-to quietly remove critical posts, transforming the Facebook pages into less of a forum and more of a vehicle for positive publicity. These tools include Facebook’s automated content filters, which allow state institutions to automatically “hide” users’ comments if they contain words included on Facebook’s undisclosed list of offensive words or the government actor’s customized list of prohibited words. These actors include public universities and colleges which are bound by the First Amendment-those very campuses where students have “challenged some established ways of doing things.” It is, however, at odds with the fact that Facebook provides governments the tools to censor. Zuckerberg’s endorsement of freedom of expression as a principle is a welcome and encouraging development. In October 2019, Facebook founder and chief executive officer Mark Zuckerberg spoke at Georgetown University, extolling the virtues of freedom of expression and noting in particular the importance of college students’ ability to “express who they were and what mattered to them,” including through “challeng some established ways of doing things on campus.” īecause Facebook is a private entity, the First Amendment-which only limits government actors-does not require it to honor expressive freedom.
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