Use Firefox ‘Election Bundle’ Extensions to Manage Facebook Political Empowerment
Facebook is politics season. With only a few weeks left until the midterm elections , there is a good chance you will see targeted Facebook ads based on your activity both on the platform and online. For those of us looking for ways to limit Facebook’s ability to influence what we say and do on the Internet , Mozilla recently launched a “pre-election package” of Firefox extensions designed to limit Facebook’s ability to influence your political decisions.
Well, by “bundle” they really mean “pair”. The download includes two useful tracking and countermeasures extensions that seem prophetic right now, but are definitely useful to have in your toolbox all year round.
First, the package includes the Mozilla Firefox Facebook Container , an internal development tool that limits Facebook’s ability to track your activity outside of Facebook. While a company can learn a lot about you based solely on what you post, banning Facebook from following you online can magically prevent it from knowing everything about you.
The package also includes the ProPublica Facebook political ad collector , which sends data from political ads submitted to you on Facebook to a non-profit journalism organization to help journalists verify the facts of political ads posted on Facebook and prevent misinformation from spreading uncontrollably. (Fun fact, this is also available as a Chrome extension if you prefer Firefox ).
In addition to the extensions, the 2018 midterm elections will take place on November 6. Make sure you vote.