Thomas A. Bryer (2013) argues that public participation in regulatory decision-making through the use of contemporary social media technologies may be more harmful than beneficial to democratization. Using the federal government's official portal for regulation and citizen participation, regulations.gov, Bryer analyzes citizen participation in the form of comments from three of the five most commented rules of 2009 (p. 264). Using Gormley's classification of regulatory issues based on the degree of complexity and relevance of the problem, Bryer states that the quality of participants' comments is predictable. Bryer also argues that regulation.gov could encourage public participation in regulatory development; however, using regulations.gov does not result in “more efficient and effective regulation” (p. 275). While Bryer's study has merit, I found his research inconsistent and unconvincing. I propose two notable flaws in his work: the method does not produce a fair sample and the emerging themes are not supported by adequate evidence. Bryer used random sampling to select participant comments for analysis. Although random sampling is an efficient research method, Bryer's problem lies in the distribution of the sample. In each case, a sample group was selected starting with the first comment received, and then every 500 comments were selected for analysis. In the HHS case, the sample results revealed that the number of males compared to females was relatively low. Indeed, Bryer (2013) points out that the majority of commenters were women in the HHS case (p. 272). The sample would have been more valid if it had included a larger number of men to be accurately represented in the center of the paper......test that there are unique challenges associated with public participation in government through social media; however, the existence of challenges does not equal abandonment. Overall, I found the validity of Bryer's research inconsistent and disappointing. Bryer's method needs to be re-evaluated, as a decent sample of comments was not selected for analysis. Drawing conclusions from an unfair sample invalidates any argument or interpretation made by the research. Furthermore, Bryer failed to produce coherent evidence to support the emerging themes of his research. As I have already highlighted, the ideas presented in the research must be supported by adequate evidence. Although Bryer's research was based on an interesting topic, he managed to produce only highly opinionated work, instead of a significant scientific study..