SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
"Many companies have for too long ignored their obligation to treat data responsibly, prevent information from being used to discriminate, and provide users full control over how it is handled," argued Neema Singh Guliani, legislative counsel at ACLU. (Photo: Reuters)
As Facebook Scrutiny Grows, New Campaign Demands Tech Giants Pledge to Build 'Surveillance-Resistant Web'
"It's time that companies take steps to ensure that using their products doesn't mean that users have to sacrifice their rights."
Apr 02, 2018
As Facebook's data breach at the hands of Cambridge Analytica spurs widespread privacy concerns and demands for accountability over how massive internet companies mine the data of their users for profit, a coalition of civil libertarians and human rights groups on Monday launched a new campaign demanding that all tech companies take concrete steps to protect users' information from exploitation and help build "a surveillance-resistant web."
"Millions of people now understand how their data can be weaponized and used against them, and they are demanding change."
--Evan Greer, Fight for the Future"This is a watershed moment for the internet," Evan Greer, deputy director of Fight for the Future, declared in a statement on Monday.
"Millions of people now understand how their data can be weaponized and used against them, and they are demanding change," Greer said. "Cambridge Analytica is just the tip of the iceberg, and this problem doesn't begin and end with Facebook. If the largest tech companies take the steps outlined in the security pledge, it will change the course of human history for the better."
Spearheaded by ACLU, Free Press, Demand Progress, Color of Change, and several other prominent organizations, the "Security Pledge" calls on tech giants to:
- Move toward "meaningful transparency" by ensuring that users "have access to and control over their data";
- Protect users' personal information by providing "end-to-end encryption" that would prevent corporate and government surveillance;
- Cease collecting and storing data that "isn't necessary for your product or business";
- Provide equal protections to all communities and stop collecting "information that is vulnerable to misuse," like immigration status and political views; and
- Support "laws that require a warrant before the government can demand information about your users" and "reforms that curtail mass surveillance."
David Segal, executive director of Demand Progress, argued in a statement on Monday that tech companies' long-term response to the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica scandal will ultimately determine whether the internet is used "for transformational change for the better" or for "the extraction of sensitive private information and manipulation towards the benefit of large corporations or for social control by governments."
"It's time that companies take steps to ensure that using their products doesn't mean that users have to sacrifice their rights."
--Neema Singh Guliani, ACLU
"The major online platforms are facing a reckoning: How they respond in this moment will help determine whether the utopian vision that inspired so many internet pioneers and users stands a chance of becoming a reality, or whether companies will ignore the public interest and turn the internet against its users towards the end of private benefit," Segal concluded.
As Common Dreams reported last week, revelations that the pro-Trump data firm Cambridge Analytica harvested the personal information of 50 million Facebook users brought renewed attention to the social media giant's far-reaching and "creepy" data mining practices--which include the collection of call records, text messaging data, and online messenger conversations dating back longer than a decade.
But privacy advocates have been quick to emphasize that Facebook is just one of many companies whose business model depends on the mass exploitation of users' personal data.
Neema Singh Guliani, legislative counsel at ACLU, said in a statement on Monday that it is long past time for these invasive practices to come to an end.
"It's time that companies take steps to ensure that using their products doesn't mean that users have to sacrifice their rights," she argued. "Many companies have for too long ignored their obligation to treat data responsibly, prevent information from being used to discriminate, and provide users full control over how it is handled."
An Urgent Message From Our Co-Founder
Dear Common Dreams reader, It’s been nearly 30 years since I co-founded Common Dreams with my late wife, Lina Newhouser. We had the radical notion that journalism should serve the public good, not corporate profits. It was clear to us from the outset what it would take to build such a project. No paid advertisements. No corporate sponsors. No millionaire publisher telling us what to think or do. Many people said we wouldn't last a year, but we proved those doubters wrong. Together with a tremendous team of journalists and dedicated staff, we built an independent media outlet free from the constraints of profits and corporate control. Our mission has always been simple: To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. Building Common Dreams was not easy. Our survival was never guaranteed. When you take on the most powerful forces—Wall Street greed, fossil fuel industry destruction, Big Tech lobbyists, and uber-rich oligarchs who have spent billions upon billions rigging the economy and democracy in their favor—the only bulwark you have is supporters who believe in your work. But here’s the urgent message from me today. It's never been this bad out there. And it's never been this hard to keep us going. At the very moment Common Dreams is most needed, the threats we face are intensifying. We need your support now more than ever. We don't accept corporate advertising and never will. We don't have a paywall because we don't think people should be blocked from critical news based on their ability to pay. Everything we do is funded by the donations of readers like you. When everyone does the little they can afford, we are strong. But if that support retreats or dries up, so do we. Will you donate now to make sure Common Dreams not only survives but thrives? —Craig Brown, Co-founder |
Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.
As Facebook's data breach at the hands of Cambridge Analytica spurs widespread privacy concerns and demands for accountability over how massive internet companies mine the data of their users for profit, a coalition of civil libertarians and human rights groups on Monday launched a new campaign demanding that all tech companies take concrete steps to protect users' information from exploitation and help build "a surveillance-resistant web."
"Millions of people now understand how their data can be weaponized and used against them, and they are demanding change."
--Evan Greer, Fight for the Future"This is a watershed moment for the internet," Evan Greer, deputy director of Fight for the Future, declared in a statement on Monday.
"Millions of people now understand how their data can be weaponized and used against them, and they are demanding change," Greer said. "Cambridge Analytica is just the tip of the iceberg, and this problem doesn't begin and end with Facebook. If the largest tech companies take the steps outlined in the security pledge, it will change the course of human history for the better."
Spearheaded by ACLU, Free Press, Demand Progress, Color of Change, and several other prominent organizations, the "Security Pledge" calls on tech giants to:
- Move toward "meaningful transparency" by ensuring that users "have access to and control over their data";
- Protect users' personal information by providing "end-to-end encryption" that would prevent corporate and government surveillance;
- Cease collecting and storing data that "isn't necessary for your product or business";
- Provide equal protections to all communities and stop collecting "information that is vulnerable to misuse," like immigration status and political views; and
- Support "laws that require a warrant before the government can demand information about your users" and "reforms that curtail mass surveillance."
David Segal, executive director of Demand Progress, argued in a statement on Monday that tech companies' long-term response to the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica scandal will ultimately determine whether the internet is used "for transformational change for the better" or for "the extraction of sensitive private information and manipulation towards the benefit of large corporations or for social control by governments."
"It's time that companies take steps to ensure that using their products doesn't mean that users have to sacrifice their rights."
--Neema Singh Guliani, ACLU
"The major online platforms are facing a reckoning: How they respond in this moment will help determine whether the utopian vision that inspired so many internet pioneers and users stands a chance of becoming a reality, or whether companies will ignore the public interest and turn the internet against its users towards the end of private benefit," Segal concluded.
As Common Dreams reported last week, revelations that the pro-Trump data firm Cambridge Analytica harvested the personal information of 50 million Facebook users brought renewed attention to the social media giant's far-reaching and "creepy" data mining practices--which include the collection of call records, text messaging data, and online messenger conversations dating back longer than a decade.
But privacy advocates have been quick to emphasize that Facebook is just one of many companies whose business model depends on the mass exploitation of users' personal data.
Neema Singh Guliani, legislative counsel at ACLU, said in a statement on Monday that it is long past time for these invasive practices to come to an end.
"It's time that companies take steps to ensure that using their products doesn't mean that users have to sacrifice their rights," she argued. "Many companies have for too long ignored their obligation to treat data responsibly, prevent information from being used to discriminate, and provide users full control over how it is handled."
As Facebook's data breach at the hands of Cambridge Analytica spurs widespread privacy concerns and demands for accountability over how massive internet companies mine the data of their users for profit, a coalition of civil libertarians and human rights groups on Monday launched a new campaign demanding that all tech companies take concrete steps to protect users' information from exploitation and help build "a surveillance-resistant web."
"Millions of people now understand how their data can be weaponized and used against them, and they are demanding change."
--Evan Greer, Fight for the Future"This is a watershed moment for the internet," Evan Greer, deputy director of Fight for the Future, declared in a statement on Monday.
"Millions of people now understand how their data can be weaponized and used against them, and they are demanding change," Greer said. "Cambridge Analytica is just the tip of the iceberg, and this problem doesn't begin and end with Facebook. If the largest tech companies take the steps outlined in the security pledge, it will change the course of human history for the better."
Spearheaded by ACLU, Free Press, Demand Progress, Color of Change, and several other prominent organizations, the "Security Pledge" calls on tech giants to:
- Move toward "meaningful transparency" by ensuring that users "have access to and control over their data";
- Protect users' personal information by providing "end-to-end encryption" that would prevent corporate and government surveillance;
- Cease collecting and storing data that "isn't necessary for your product or business";
- Provide equal protections to all communities and stop collecting "information that is vulnerable to misuse," like immigration status and political views; and
- Support "laws that require a warrant before the government can demand information about your users" and "reforms that curtail mass surveillance."
David Segal, executive director of Demand Progress, argued in a statement on Monday that tech companies' long-term response to the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica scandal will ultimately determine whether the internet is used "for transformational change for the better" or for "the extraction of sensitive private information and manipulation towards the benefit of large corporations or for social control by governments."
"It's time that companies take steps to ensure that using their products doesn't mean that users have to sacrifice their rights."
--Neema Singh Guliani, ACLU
"The major online platforms are facing a reckoning: How they respond in this moment will help determine whether the utopian vision that inspired so many internet pioneers and users stands a chance of becoming a reality, or whether companies will ignore the public interest and turn the internet against its users towards the end of private benefit," Segal concluded.
As Common Dreams reported last week, revelations that the pro-Trump data firm Cambridge Analytica harvested the personal information of 50 million Facebook users brought renewed attention to the social media giant's far-reaching and "creepy" data mining practices--which include the collection of call records, text messaging data, and online messenger conversations dating back longer than a decade.
But privacy advocates have been quick to emphasize that Facebook is just one of many companies whose business model depends on the mass exploitation of users' personal data.
Neema Singh Guliani, legislative counsel at ACLU, said in a statement on Monday that it is long past time for these invasive practices to come to an end.
"It's time that companies take steps to ensure that using their products doesn't mean that users have to sacrifice their rights," she argued. "Many companies have for too long ignored their obligation to treat data responsibly, prevent information from being used to discriminate, and provide users full control over how it is handled."
We've had enough. The 1% own and operate the corporate media. They are doing everything they can to defend the status quo, squash dissent and protect the wealthy and the powerful. The Common Dreams media model is different. We cover the news that matters to the 99%. Our mission? To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. How? Nonprofit. Independent. Reader-supported. Free to read. Free to republish. Free to share. With no advertising. No paywalls. No selling of your data. Thousands of small donations fund our newsroom and allow us to continue publishing. Can you chip in? We can't do it without you. Thank you.