| | | Facebook fired Sophie Zhang because she spent too much of her time trying to defend "unimportant countries'' from massive online campaigns designed to distort elections and prop up dictators. Social media companies prioritize profits over people, and they'll keep doing it until new laws force them to change. The US, Big Tech's home and headquarters, has a short window but if lawmakers don't act soon we won't have another chance until 2023. Add your name to pressure US President Biden to push this issue to the forefront in Congress and work to address the dangers of social media while preserving the freedom of speech: | | | | | Dear friends, | | "I have blood on my hands".
That's how Sophie Zhang, a former Facebook data scientist, described her work for the platform.
She saw how people were massacred in Myanmar and died in Bolivia in protests spurred in part by lies and manipulation on Facebook. She was outraged that Facebook was allowing dictators and unscrupulous politicians to mislead their citizens, rig elections, justify attacks on opponents, and incite deadly violence using fake accounts.
"Perhaps they thought they were clever; the truth was, we simply didn't care enough to stop them."
Enough is enough!
The next few weeks might be our last chance to hold Facebook and other big tech giants to account in the country where they're headquartered. President Biden promised to defend truth, and is considering how to rein in the Tech giants -- but the window to act is closing fast. If enough of us speak up, Avaaz will deliver our voices directly to the White House to pressure Biden to set a clear agenda for Congress to regulate social media. Sign and share everywhere:
| | | | | By turning a blind eye to political manipulation campaigns across the world, giant companies like Facebook have allowed political instability and polarization to flourish because they didn't think it would hurt their bottom line. But it hurt the people.
This is not just an online issue, it has bloody real-life consequences: Zhang watched 9 people die in deadly clashes inflamed by the fake online activity that she had detected - and was told to 'de-prioritize'. As the harms became undeniable, Facebook's CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, started calling for regulation on his terms, while mounting a behind-the-scenes effort to deny responsibility for his inaction.
Accountability for the world starts with regulation in the US, where social media companies are headquartered. And only President Biden has the political power to tell Congress that we need legislation built to defend democracy from Big Tech, in order to start building a safer online environment for all while protecting freedom of expression.
Let's make him hear the from whole world our unified call for digital accountability: | | | | Avaaz has guarded democracies from disinformation all over the world. We've unveiled disinformation networks that reached billions of views, attacking elections in Brazil, the EU, and the U.S. We've documented hate speech and extremism in India, shown how Facebook helped make the invasion of the Capitol possible, and blown the whistle on the platforms' inability to contain disinformation about COVID-19. We've pushed reluctant social media platforms to adopt partial measures, but only regulation will get us the rest of the way. Let's win this together!
With hope and determination,
Nate, Laura, Liliana, Christoph, Luis and the whole Avaaz team. | | | | | | |
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