John —

There are a few hours left in GivingTuesday, and your donation today will still be matched! Will you donate $10 right now? Your money WILL NOT go to Facebook ads, but it will support innovative tools and creative tactics that are essential in our work together for Internet freedom and privacy. ~ Evan

John,

Facebook is one of the most dangerous and despised corporations in the world.

Massive data breaches. Psychological experimentation. Sharing user data with advertisers. Total lack of transparency.

That’s why Fight for the Future refuses to spend a single dime of your money on Facebook ads.

But to make sure we can walk away from the world’s largest online network without sacrificing effectiveness means hiring our own in-house tech staff, training more organizers and volunteer leaders, and building powerful new tools that can power our organizing just as well—or even better—than Facebook could.

We can win without Facebook, but only with your help. This Giving Tuesday, will you invest in Fight for the Future’s principled, innovative approach to organizing with a donation of $10? Today your gift will be matched by a generous donor, so you can double your impact!

Facebook is the largest social network in the world, with 2.4 billion users.¹ The majority of Americans get their news via social media sites like Facebook,² and many people use the site to take action for causes they care about.

That’s why advertising on Facebook can seem like such a powerful and cheap way to organize for a cause.

But doing business with Facebook is like making a deal with the devil, and every dime we give Facebook is used to undermine the very goals we’re working to achieve: protecting our privacy, stopping online surveillance, and keeping the internet free and open to all.³

In order to make up for the access that Facebook offers to mass audiences, our small, scrappy team has to get creative. And this approach has paid off: we’ve been able to create innovative new tools, and improve existing ones by bringing the technology in-house and closer to the organizing.

Innovation and creativity has been in our DNA from the start—from the Internet blackout that swept the Web in 2012 to stop SOPA/PIPA to the tools we built this year to help fight for net neutrality.⁴

In 2016, we built a first of its kind voter registration text bot, giving millions of Americans who rely on mobile phones for their primary Internet access a way to register by text message in one minute.⁵ Then, we took that one step further by launching a tool that uses text messaging and a constituent’s location to connect them to Congress, with information and instructions tailored just for their Representative or Senator.⁶

These innovative tools and creative tactics are far more effective than just throwing money at Facebook ads. But it means we need to invest in our staff, our technology, and tried and true boots on the ground organizing. And to do that, we need your support.

This Giving Tuesday, will you donate to Fight for the Future—and have your gift matched—to help us keep innovating?

Thanks for your support.

Evan at Fight for the Future

Footnotes:

1. Our World In Data: https://ourworldindata.org/rise-of-social-media

2. Pew Research Center: https://www.journalism.org/2018/09/10/news-use-across-social-media-platforms-2018/

3. The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/apr/22/facebook-profit-fall-fake-news-privacy-scandals

4. Fight for the Future: https://www.fightforthefuture.org/about

5. Hello.Vote: https://www.hello.vote/

6. Battle For The Net: https://www.battleforthenet.com/

Fight for the Future works to protect your rights in the digital age.