Long story short: tell our SEC to investigate Donald Trump's latest media organization, tell Starbucks to stop interfering with its workers' unionization efforts, tell our government to investigate Facebook for law-breaking, tell our FTC to protect Americans' data privacy, tell our Senators to confirm two Biden nominees to our FCC, and tell AT&T to stop funding the One America News (sic) Network. Use the email/petition tools in the following paragraphs to communicate your will.
Sum of Us helps you tell our Securities and Exchange Commission (or SEC) to investigate the creation of the "Trump Media and Technology Group." Not because of "politics" or "irrational hatred," but because, frankly, the whole exercise looks like a scam designed to defraud investors. And it's no use shrugging and saying ho ho ho these people deserve to lose their money, because the law should protect all of us, otherwise it's not much of a law, is it? This "Trump Media and Technology Group" merged with a shell corporation, claimed it'd make a gazillion dollars, and then told Trump votaries to invest their life savings -- and voila! The stock price went through the roof, and now they don't have to do any work. Kinda like all his other doings, now that I think about it. So it at least merits an investigation.
More Perfect Union helps you tell Starbucks to stop trying to stamp out its workers' efforts to organize for better pay and working conditions. Buffalo Starbucks workers are trying to unionize as we speak, and Starbucks has responded in exactly the manner you thought they would -- with intimidation, mandatory propaganda meetings, and store closings. I've been in plenty of Starbucks with not enough workers to handle the volume, sp why shouldn't they unionize for better pay and working conditions? Do they not deserve our respect? It wasn't that long ago that Americans looked down on factory workers and their "unearned" prosperity (which was mainly their children's prosperity); now that they're almost all gone we idealize them. Let's not one day tell that sad story about today's workers!
MoveOn and the American Economic Liberties Project help you tell our government to investigate Facebook executives for their potential law-breaking. Which might not be confined to inflating advertising stats and then lying about them to investors, but may also include private discussions to deceive investors, clients, and regulators, as two investor lawsuits allege and which Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen's documents also support. I guess Mr. Zuckerman, who's not even 40 yet, will one day say that he didn't know he was breaking the law because this was the first time he was a billionaire. The Buddhists may smile upon that explanation, but I won't, and our laws shouldn't, either. I mean, fraud is fraud, and if you commit fraud, you should pay the price.
Access Now helps you tell our Federal Trade Commission (or FTC) to enact privacy rules that would protect Americans from the greed and venality of social media corporations (among others). You'll recall that our Federal Communications Commission (or FCC) enacted pretty good data privacy rules in 2016 -- and that the Republican Congress, apparently unable to tolerate any attempt to tell a corporation not to hurt people, repealed those rules in a "resolution of disapproval," which also forbade our FCC from ever revisiting the issue. But that resolution doesn't apply to our FTC -- different letters! And even the Trump FTC fined Facebook $5 billion for privacy violations, so it has not merely a role in justice but some practice in extracting it. And President Biden's FTC is a vast improvement on Mr. Trump's.
Both Free Press and Fight for the Future help you tell your Senators to confirm President Biden's two new FCC nominees. Now our FCC can do its work; previously it had only four Commissioners, guaranteeing 2-2 deadlocks on every conceivable issue; President Biden has essentially appointed Jessica Rosenworcel (whose term would otherwise expire in January) to a full term as FCC Commissioner -- a position she has filled on an acting basis this year -- and former Media Access Project executive director Gigi Sohn to the position left vacant by former FCC Chair Ajit Pai's resignation this past January 20. Without five Commissioners, our FCC can't do very much business, and much business awaits it, chiefly the possibility of net neutrality's reinstatement and the resulting increased ability to stop big telecom corporations from harming consumers. So let's get that done.
Finally, both the Juggernaut Project and Common Cause help you tell AT&T to stop its financial enabling of the right-wing "news" network OAN. As you no doubt know, AT&T actually wanted a new right-wing news network that could compete with Fox News; why on Earth anyone would actually want such a thing is a mystery that will forever befuddle me, but that's why we have the "news" network that constantly yammers on about how Democrats "stole" the 2020 election from Donald Trump by getting seven million more votes. They're no better on any other issue facing Americans today, and even their founder and CEO will tell you, if you put enough liquor in him, that OAN wouldn't survive without AT&T funding. Seems to me there's a starve-the-best mandate waiting to be enacted here. But only if we get in their grills about it.
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