INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
A team of progressive advocacy groups, including MoveOn and Demand Progress, are asking the Federal Trade Commission to &make Facebook
safe for democracy.& According to Axios, the campaign, called Freedom From Facebook, will launch a six-figure ad campaign on Monday that
will run on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, among other platforms.
The other advocacy groups behind the campaign are Citizens Against
Monopoly, Content Creators Coalition, Jewish Voice for Peace, Mpower Change, Open Markets Institute and SumOfUs
Together they are calling on the FTC to &break up Facebook monopoly& by forcing it to spin off Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger into
separate, competing companies
They also want the FTC to require interoperability so users can communicate against competing social networks and strengthen privacy
regulations.
Freedom From Facebook site also includes an online petition and privacy guide that links to FB Purity and the Electronic
Frontier Foundation Privacy Badger, browser extensions that help users streamline their Facebook ad preferences and block online trackers,
respectively.
The FTC recently gained a new chairman after President Donald Trump pick for the position Joseph Simons was sworn in early
this month, along with four new commissioners also nominated by Trump
Simons is an antitrust lawyer who has represented large tech firms like Microsoft and Sony
The FTC is currently investigating whether or not Facebook involvement with Cambridge Analytica violated a previous legal agreement it had
with the commission, but many people are wondering if it and other federal agencies are capable of regulating tech companies, especially
after many lawmakers seemed confused about how social media works during Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg Congressional hearing last
month.
Despite its data privacy and regulatory issues, Facebook is still doing well from a financial perspective
Its first-quarter earnings report showed strong user growth and revenue above Wall Street expectations.
TechCrunch has contacted Freedom
From Facebook and Facebook for comment.
