March 4, 2019

Facebook F’s It Up Again

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Here’s the latest from Facebook:

For years, Facebook has been badgering its users to set up two-factor authentication, which is indeed considered best practice for online security. This requires you to give Facebook your phone number so that they can text you a passcode to log in to your account.

But last year we learned that Facebook had made all these phone numbers available to advertisers so they could target ads. Now it turns out that even if you never added it to your profile, other people can still look you up via your phone number.

Is this a big deal? In and of itself, maybe not. But there are two big harms here anyway. First, Facebook has once again revealed personal information without asking permission. The default should be to keep security information completely private unless you explicitly give permission to share it. But in this case it’s not. And not only is the default set to make it shareable, there’s not even a way to change it once you discover what’s going on.

Second, this kind of behavior will rightfully make people suspicious of security enhancements. It’s in everyone’s best interest to improve online security, and we should always feel confident that online companies are at least doing their best to keep our security information safe and private. Once again, though, Facebook has blown up this implicit contract in order to improve its bottom line by a few dollars. Nice work, guys.

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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