Image:
To see the original, click here:
[link removed]
Friend,
Facebook just did something that should terrify everyone who cares about
democracy anywhere in the world: For six straight days, Facebook shut
down links to all news stories in Australia, cutting off traffic to
nearly every news source in a country of 25 million people.
The biggest newspapers in the country. Australian public broadcasting
websites. Corporate media, nonprofit media. All of it, shut down on
Facebook for almost a full week. And despite the pandemic, even
health-care information sites got caught in the blackout.
It's not only a story we covered in detail, but it also hits close to
home-- because if this happened to Common Dreams, it would be
devastating.
In fact, we got a taste of it last year, when Facebook intentionally
suppressed news stories in the U.S. from progressive news outlets like
Common Dreams. In September, at the very moment that our readership
usually spikes in the run-up to a presidential election, 70% of our
traffic from Facebook vanished into thin air—and it still hasn't fully
recovered.
And we didn't just lose readers. We rely on donations from readers to
pay for everything from our staff to web hosting to the water and
electric bills for our office. So when our readership goes down, our
donations go down.
Make no mistake: Tech giants like Facebook are an existential threat to
Common Dreams and to democracy itself. To insulate ourselves from these
attacks, we're counting on you to keep us strong.
Will you make a donation to help make sure we can continue to produce
journalism each day that informs, inspires, and ignites change for the
common good—no matter what attacks we face from corporate tech giants
like Facebook?
[link removed]
No corporation in a functioning democracy should have the power to shut
down the basic flow of information and news, but that's where we are.
Advocates have been warning about the threat of Facebook's monopoly for
years, calling for Facebook to be broken up, just like Big Oil and the
other monopolistic trusts of the Gilded Age.
But policy-makers and regulators have shown no willingness to enforce
the law, so it's up to us to be prepared for the worst.
Please donate whatever you can and help meet our Winter Fundraising
Campaign goal of $75,000 by March 2.
[link removed]
Thank you for your support for our common dreams,
DONATE NOW
[link removed]
Kimberly Monaghan
Board Chair
for the whole Common Dreams news team
P.S. Help us remain strong by becoming a monthly sustaining donor!
[link removed]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Call 207.775.0488 to donate by phone or mail a check to:
Common Dreams, PO Box 443, Portland, ME 04112, USA | Unsubscribe
[link removed]
