Most people who use the internet are familiar with personalized advertisements. But the big internet platforms aren’t selling you products. They are selling you and the troves of information they have collected about you to advertisers and others seeking to manipulate what you see on the internet.

For companies such as Facebook and Google, this business model has produced record profits. It has also amplified misinformation and promotion of violence on a scale that our country has never seen before. 

The unfortunate reality is that Big Tech’s toxic business model is undermining democracy. Add your name to join the fight for bold reform.

Here’s how it works: Big social media companies don’t sell ads to you, they sell access to YOU. And the longer you spend in front of your screen, the more valuable you become as a commodity. That’s why Facebook will do pretty much anything to keep you glued to their platform, even if it means spreading outright lies about the election, public health, or other critical public interest matters. Because the ugly truth is that’s some of their best-performing content.

It’s a vicious cycle. The longer you spend clicking, the more data these companies collect about you and the better they get at keeping you there so that they make more money. The name of this business model is fitting: surveillance advertising.

Help us save our democracy by calling for an end to surveillance advertising.

The best way to end this cycle is to ban surveillance advertising and remove the financial incentive for companies to create databases of your personal information and to feed users misinformation and lies about key government functions. We’ve already seen where this leads: violent assaults on our democracy like the January 6 insurrection on Capitol Hill. Now is the time to take action.