Users United
The apps we use on the internet have a wide mandate to do whatever they want with our data once we “sign” those dreaded Terms of Service. Track us wherever we go with a special cookie, check. Sell our data to every third party with a dollar, check. Listen in, check. Censor us, check. The list goes on and on. Where will it stop, and what options do users have?
We can delete our accounts, sure. The #DeleteFacebook movement shows that users around the world are fed up. But is deleting our accounts really our only, best option?
No one can deny that Facebook provides a very valuable utility, whether we appreciate it or not. Remembering birthdays, keeping track of loved ones, far and wide — Facebook is a repository of the important moments of your life, past and perhaps present.
Here’s the point: Users needing to DELETE their accounts because that’s the only way to protest bad behavior is like self-immolation. Yes, you prove your point, but at what cost? Is that really the most effective, self-preserving form of protest? Think about the people who still use Facebook unwittingly who will miss you. Think about Grandma. There is a better way to protest Facebook without losing so much.
We don’t need to delete Facebook, just like union workers don’t need to quit their jobs when management slashes benefits, lowers wages or cuts paid time off. They strike. Everybody just walks out. And eventually a deal is made. Why doesn’t that exist for the internet?
So that’s why we (Swain Hwang and I) built Users United, a decentralized union of users (built on the NEAR Protocol) for organizing and measuring boycotts against publicly traded internet companies. And if it’s not clear enough, we’re starting with Facebook.
Starting today, anyone with a Facebook account can go to https://usersunited.org/ and join the boycott. You connect your Facebook account, attach it to a blockchain, powered by the NEAR Protocol, state your reason for boycotting Facebook, and that’s it! You’ve joined the internet’s first ever union for users.
Let’s see where it goes.
