Several nonprofit groups have banded together to try and “stop Facebook”

Just a heads up, if you buy something through our links, we may get a small share of the sale. It’s one of the ways we keep the lights on here. Click here for more.

Facebook has been under constant fire over that last month or so after it became pretty clear that the company’s practices to maximize profit are pretty bad for society as a whole. Now, a coalition of nonprofit groups has organized together to push back against the social media giant.

HowToStopFacebook.org is a new campaign organized by dozens of nonprofit organizations to call on legislators to enact regulations to stop Facebook from operating as it has been. People can sign up on the website to show their support for the initiative.

The new campaign is made up of over 30 different nonprofit groups, including organizations like Global Voices and Fight for the Future.

Referencing the recent revelations from Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen, the coalition says the platform’s practices are “hurting our kids, undermining democracy in the U.S. and globally, and exacerbating discrimination.” As usual, the group is targeting algorithms designed to show us content that has a negative effect but keeps us on the site longer.

The group’s solution for stopping those outcomes is calling on Congress to pass a “real data privacy law for the United States,” stopping platforms like Facebook and Google from collecting the data they need for their algorithms.

By calling on Congress, the group hopes to finally hit Facebook where it would hurt the most. “The best way to stop Facebook’s harms for the whole world is to cut off the fuel supply for its dangerous machine”

While federal regulation may seem like a perfect solution, it presents its own problems. Major tech companies have the ability to throw around money and lobby for regulations that could work in their favor. After all, tech companies tend to be much more knowledgeable in online privacy issues.

Have any thoughts on this? Let us know down below in the comments or carry the discussion over to our Twitter or Facebook.

Editors’ Recommendations:

• Twitter is testing out ads in replies because ads every five tweets wasn’t enough
• Facebook finally says no to selling Amazon rainforest land on Facebook Marketplace
• Instagram will start letting users know when its down after last week’s dumpster fire of an outage
• TikTok passes 1 billion monthly users as our attention spans continue to shrink