Giving Tuesday: 4 Reasons Why Donating to Non-Profits Can Help Save the Internet
By: Dylan Fabris
Tags: Nonprofit, Philanthropy, Giving Tuesday, Social Media, Internet

Giving Tuesday: 4 Reasons Why Donating to Non-Profits Can Help Save the Internet

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to a drop in charitable donations this year. But with unprecedented threats to our health, communities, and democracy, nonprofit organizations need our help this year more than any other. Luckily, a special CARES Act provision will allow almost 90% of Americans — everyone who files taxes with the standard (non-itemized) deduction — to take a charitable tax deduction this year of up to $300 for cash donations to qualified nonprofits. If you can afford to, here are a few more reasons why you should donate to help save the internet this year.

Graphic by Samantha Weslin

1. Disinformation is on the rise.

By now, we’ve all heard about how Russia interfered in the 2016 US election by using fake accounts to make misleading posts on social media. Unfortunately, the problem has only grown in the years since. Leading up to the 2020 US election, Russia, China, and Iran all reportedly engaged in disinformation campaigns to influence Americans. A 2019 study found that 70 countries have engaged in online disinformation campaigns — an increase of 150% since 2017. Not to mention, disinformation from domestic sources is also emerging through conspiracy theories, fake local news websites, and alt-right social media apps created and spread in the US.

2. Your privacy is facing threats on many fronts.

Fourteen out of the twenty all-time largest data breaches occurred over the past five years. By the end of the first three quarters of this year, a whopping 36 billion records had been exposed in 2,953 publicly reported breaches, making 2020 the worst year on record in terms of the number of records exposed. With totals like these, it is likely that your information may have been exposed to cyber criminals and strangers online (find out if you’ve been breached here).

Single sign-on (SSO) options on a website. (Source: getaround.com)

But hackers are not the only threat to your privacy. Tech companies like Facebook and Google make money by selling your private data to advertisers. Information you post and consume on social media sites helps these corporations learn more about you. And whenever you click the button to “Sign in with” Facebook or Google on another website, you are only offering up even more of your precious data. These single sign-ons (SSOs) may make things more convenient for the average user, but they do so at the expense of your privacy.

3. Corporations can’t be trusted to solve these problems on their own.

While it is true that some social media sites have taken small steps to try to help tackle these issues, any action taken solely by social media companies should be taken with a heavy serving of salt. Social media companies have been notoriously bad at enforcing the spread of fake news on their platforms. Misleading, radical posts generate money by having an addictive effect on people, increasing the amount of ads that can be shown and providing an incentive to keep the pages up.

Even setting aside the possibility of data breaches (some even from Facebook and Google), social media companies cannot be trusted with your private information, since it is a crucial component of their business model. By using your information, advertisers can specifically target you with messages that they think will be most likely to get you to buy their product or vote for their candidate. While this tactic rakes in the dough for social media companies, it is manipulative and dangerous for democracy.

4. You can trust nonprofits.

Nonprofits are uniquely equipped to handle these huge threats to democracy and online privacy. Unlike corporations, nonprofits don’t exist just to make money. In fact, the United States strictly regulates how 501(c)(3) nonprofits can spend the money they earn. Perhaps that’s why people trust nonprofits to act more ethically than businesses, the media, and the government.

When it comes to fixing the internet, nonprofits have a lot to offer. They can act as neutral third parties between consumers and websites. They are mission-driven instead of money-driven, so they can be trusted to safeguard user data instead of selling it off to the highest bidder. They can also be trusted to find the best solution to eliminating the bots that abuse systems and spread fake news.

These are some of the solutions that the nonprofit humanID is trying to implement with its secure SSO feature. Instead of requiring users to sign in using a big social media company’s portal, humanID uses blockchain technology to make signing into websites easy, accountable, and anonymous. If these types of honest solutions appeal to you, consider showing your support. Help nonprofits like humanID make an impact by donating to make the internet a safer place.

humanID is fighting to fix the internet and slow the spread of digital disinformation. Consider donating to humanID here.

humanID is a part of the Bluenumber Foundation, a 501(c)(3) private foundation and a gold-level GuideStar participant, demonstrating its commitment to transparency.

What’s humanID?

humanID is a new anonymous online identity that blocks bots and social media manipulation. If you care about privacy and protecting free speech, consider supporting humanID at www.human-id.org, and follow us on Twitter & LinkedIn.