Dear Editor:

In the Oct. 28th issue of the Tribune Kevin Killough wrote a great opinion piece about Facebook, also known in this house as “Fakebook.” I thought I would share our experience with that notorious platform.

I joined Facebook to connect with friends around the world. I cannot tell you exactly when I chose to do this. My husband Bob never went to Facebook unless I pulled it up to show him something or tell him about a post I saw so it was all my doing.

One of the first posts I saw was when someone asked a friend what she was doing. The answer was “Laundry.” After that I figured nothing important was going to happen in my “Fakebook” world, so I quit visiting for a very long time. 

Sometime, at least several years down the road, Bob and I learned that a niece who was not even a teenager at the time had joined. She was being raised by my dad and his wife, so they had no idea what was going on. When I connected with her on the platform I got to see if I knew any of the people she had become friends with. They were all adults, who did not know she was a child. One man’s picture was of his erect penis. I was horrified, called my dad to let him know, then had my niece blocked from using the platform.

It was a very long time before I became a regular user, but our friends and family used it all the time, so I thought I would give it a try again. It was still pretty trivial stuff but at least I connected with people I had not seen or heard from in a while.

Then, “Fakebook” began censoring people on a supposedly free speech platform. Freedom of speech means that you can say anything you want and people are allowed to express their disagreement. When censorship became the norm I left “Fakebook” completely. I have not and will not go back. I did say goodbye to all my friends and family and told them why I was leaving.

I have since learned that “Fakebook” allows terrorists to spiel their rhetoric with no censorship and that they are a huge purveyor of pornography, both child and adult. Why anyone wants to be part of a platform that censors valid comments but allows criminal acts to continue is beyond me. 

In the true course of capitalism we are allowed to spend our money wherever we want. Taking money away from “Fakebook” and giving it to another platform would tell them that they are no longer needed or wanted. If Mark Zuckerberg was not already running scared he would not be creating the new “Metaverse” where he can continue to confuse and control the narrative.

Linda Graff

Powell