Accountable Tech is proud to join the Ban Surveillance Advertising Coalition’s grassroots education effort to help everyone opt out of Facebook’s cross-app tracking.
Apple’s new software update allows users to opt out of cross-app surveillance—putting a dent in Big Tech’s ability to track your activity across the internet and sell your personal information in service of their toxic surveillance advertising business model. Surveillance advertising is the greatest structural driver of societal harms online, from privacy abuses and the amplification of outrageous content, to targeted predation and manipulative product designs.
Corporate jockeying amongst Big Tech rivals won’t solve our problems, but this is a moment we can cut down on Facebook’s toxic business model of surveillance advertising. By following activity on your phone, Facebook captures your personal information and leverages it to keep you hooked on their platform and hyper-target you with content and advertisements—creating a vicious cycle that amplifies extremism and misinformation all to the benefit of Facebook’s bottom line.