Governing Babel
The Debate over Social Media Platforms and Free Speech--and What Comes Next
$61.47
- Paperback
256 pages
- Release Date
18 November 2025
Summary
Why social media platforms have a responsibility to look after their platforms, how they can achieve the transparency needed, and what they should do when harms arise.
The large, corporate global platforms networking the world’s publics now host most of the world’s information and communication. Much has been written about social media platforms, and many have argued for platform accountability, responsibility, and transparency. But relatively few works have tried to place platform dy…
Book Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780262049917 |
|---|---|
| ISBN-10: | 0262049910 |
| Author: | John P. Wihbey |
| Publisher: | MIT Press Ltd |
| Imprint: | MIT Press |
| Format: | Paperback |
| Number of Pages: | 256 |
| Release Date: | 18 November 2025 |
| Weight: | 324g |
| Dimensions: | 27mm x 228mm x 155mm |
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Critics Review
“John Wihbey has written a tour de force that tackles the Babel of confusion and fragmentation fostered by modern communications. Separating myth from fact, and seasoning it with lively examples, Wihbey has produced a book that is both readable and informative.”
—Tom Wheeler, former chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC); author of Techlash
“This is a book we desperately need right now. With clarity, wisdom, intellectual sophistication, and the discipline to avoid short-term thinking, John Wihbey takes us on an authoritative tour of information and speech in the social media era, the most pressing of topics, and shows us the form that the next and better phase might take.”
—Nicholas Lemann, author of Higher Admissions; Dean Emeritus and Joseph Pulitzer II and Edith Pulitzer Moore Professor of Journalism, Columbia University
“Essential reading for anyone who thinks seriously about democracy, technology, and the future of public life … historically informed, analytically honest, and genuinely useful.”
—Diplomacy & Politics
About The Author
John P. Wihbey
John P. Wihbey is Associate Professor of Media Innovation at Northeastern University, where he cofounded the Institute for Information, Internet & Democracy and directs the AI-Media Strategies Lab. He is the author of The Social Fact (MIT Press) and has served as a research consultant to social media companies, foundations, and government.
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