Posted on March 13, 2025
Pi is a remarkable number: Here’s an outrageous one
Friday, 3/14, is Pi Day. It’s a day to celebrate math and the wonder of numbers. Specifically, it’s a day to celebrate pi, the wonderful number that goes on forever.
Here’s another number that goes on forever—or seems to, anyway: U.S. military spending, which in 2024 reached $884 billion.
Most of the federal budget is mandatory spending – spending already legislated by Congress. This is mostly Social Security, Medicare and interest on the debt. The rest is discretionary; almost half of which is military.
People talk about cutting spending, but these are focused on things like SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) which helps millions of hungry families and takes up 1.8% of the budget.(1) Or, Foreign Aid, which takes up 1.3% of the budget – this includes aid to Ukraine.(2) These cuts won’t really save any money and punish people in need.
Here’s some spending you can get behind
$95 million. That’s how much we’ve donated to the causes you care about. Not military bloat but peace, justice, climate action and an economy that works for everyone.
That’s what we believe in. And that’s why, every month, we donate to nonprofit groups like Friends of the Earth, Reproductive Freedom for All and Social Security Works.
Because CREDO Mobile is not just a phone company. We’re a movement of people who stand for basic human values like truth, fairness and equal rights – working for a better world.
Will you join us? You’ll get all you want from your mobile service: the nation’s largest 5G network, competitive plans, and friendly customer service.
And you’ll get much more. You’ll get an easy, effective way to make a difference in the world every day.
Switching is easy. Just go to CREDOMobile.com.
(1) https://www.pgpf.org/article/what-is-snap/
(2) https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/02/06/what-the-data-says-about-us-foreign-aid/
Posted on March 12, 2025
How Does CREDO Mobile’s Donations Program Work
CREDO Mobile isn’t like most companies. Our passion isn’t dollars—it’s change. And it’s been that way since we started, in 1985. It was then, at the height of the “greed is good” Reagan era, that our founders launched a company focused not only on the bottom line but on a higher purpose: a better world. It’s been more successful than we ever thought possible. We’ve been able to donate over $95 million to nonprofit groups fighting for civil rights, equality, the environment, women’s rights and more.
But we always get the question: How is CREDO able to donate every month to groups that share our values at no extra cost to our members? Here’s an inside look at how it all works.
Every CREDO Mobile customer is a philanthropist
We work hard every day to provide the best possible mobile phone service to our customers. We take a portion of the revenue generated by the business and distribute it to the three progressive nonprofits we are supporting that month.
What groups does CREDO Mobile Fund?
We fund progressive nonprofit groups that believe in our values and fight along with us for greater social change. We primarily fund organizations that fall generally within six broad categories: Civil Rights, Climate Justice, Peace, Women’s Rights, Economic Justice and Voting Rights. We fund nonprofits that are working for societal change – organizations that other companies might not necessarily support. Organizations with a clear point of view. It is a good thing to help feed the hungry. It is also a good thing to build a society where people are not hungry – and that is the kind of progressive social change we are working for.
Some recent grantees include Democracy Now!, the ACLU, Rainforest Action Network, Social Security Works, Black Voters Matter, Friends of the Earth, March for Our Lives, and Abortion Care Network. You can see a list of groups recently funded here.
The groups we support are chosen democratically. Throughout the year, CREDO Mobile customers, CREDO employees and members of the general public nominate nonprofit groups to receive donations funding. The CREDO team invites organizations to apply to our Donations Program and also vets other potential organizations. Each month, we present a handful of those organizations to all CREDO employees who then vote on the final three organizations that appear on our monthly ballot to receive a donation. It is very difficult to choose from so many important and deserving nonprofits.
You can nominate a group for funding here.
Voting to distribute funding
Here’s what makes CREDO’s philanthropy truly special and different from other companies: We let you vote to decide how we distribute the donations among three nonprofit groups. It’s truly democratic. Each month, CREDO customers, supporters and the general public visit CREDODonations.com to vote for the group (or groups) they’d most like to see funded. Donations are then distributed according to their votes.
You can vote now
Monthly voting is open to anyone who wants to take a few seconds to vote on our ballot and direct funding to the progressive nonprofit(s) of their choice. You can vote for 1, 2 or all 3 groups. You can vote every month if you like – but only one time per month.
Posted on March 12, 2025
It’s Pi Day: Let’s celebrate math—and fight inequality
March 14 is Pi Day. It’s a day (3.14, naturally) to celebrate the amazing number pi, which goes on forever without repeating. More broadly, it’s a day to appreciate mathematics and get better acquainted with the power of numbers.
Here’s a powerful number, one that all Americans should get better acquainted with: the shocking level of wealth inequality in the U.S.
The top 1% now own over 30% of the nation’s wealth, while the bottom 50% own just 2.4%. And the bottom 40% own 1%—practically nothing. Americans should get better acquainted with numbers like these because, well, they’re not now. They think wealth inequality is much less severe than it really is.
In honor of Pi Day, here are three pie charts that show the level of inequality Americans assume we have, the level that, ideally, they think we should have and the level we actually have.
This is a red alert for America. The effects of wealth inequality are all bad. They include a breakdown in social cohesion, a crumbling economy and widespread loss of opportunity for the non-wealthy. Indeed, a roundtable of experts in politics, government and economics recently predicted that wealth inequality could bring societal collapse within 10 years.
Specifically, they said it will cause a negative feedback loop in which failure by government to tax the wealthy leads to insufficient revenue to provide the services people need. As politicians refuse to address the underlying problem, trust in leaders erodes to a point where “the social contract collapses.”
Sound familiar?
At CREDO Mobile, we support an economy that works for everyone. That’s why we’ve donated millions of dollars to nonprofit groups dedicated to a fair economy. Groups like the Center for Economic and Policy Research, Brennan Center for Justice, Social Security Works and The Other 98%.
Strength in numbers
We’re more than a phone company. We’re a movement of people who stand for Economic Justice, Civil Rights, Equality and Climate Justice.
Will you join us? You’ll get all you want from your mobile service: superfast coast to coast coverage, competitive plans, great deals on new phones and friendly customer service.
And you’ll get much more. You’ll get an easy, effective way to make a difference for the causes you care about.
Switching is easy. You can bring your current phone and your current number. Just go to CREDOMobile.com.
Posted on March 11, 2025
Donations spotlight: Help the ACLU defend the rights of immigrants
Note from the CREDO Mobile team: This March, American Civil Liberties Union is among three amazing groups that will receive a share of our monthly grant. Funding from the CREDO Mobile community will be vital to the nonprofit as it continues to fight to defend the rights of immigrants.
Read this important blog post from ACLU, then visit CREDO Donations and cast your vote to help send much-needed grant money to the group to assist its efforts—and the efforts of our other outstanding March grantees.
Protecting immigrants’ rights is a core priority of the ACLU, which was founded amid an outbreak of anti-immigrant government raids during the first Red Scare, in the 1920s. The ACLU is dedicated to defending the constitutional rights of immigrants, and has been at the forefront of almost every major legal struggle on behalf of immigrants’ rights through impact litigation and other advocacy.
In just its first few days, the Trump administration issued executive orders that attack immigrants’ rights and it has not ceased since then. But with your support, our lawyers and advocates have sprung immediately to action to defend immigrants’ rights—and the rights of all Americans—against these attacks. This is not only the just thing to do, it’s also the necessary thing to do if we are to defend our nation. Because first they will come for the immigrants, then they will come for all of us who don’t fall in line.
Birthright citizenship
The ACLU and our partners sued the Trump administration over its executive order seeking to strip certain babies born in the U.S. of their citizenship. This is a right guaranteed by the 14th Amendment to the Constitution and an executive order does not have the power to override it. Trump’s claim that many immigrants aren’t “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States and, therefore, aren’t protected by the 14th Amendment is flatly inconsistent with the Constitution, federal statutory law and Supreme Court precedent.
On February 10, we won a preliminary injunction blocking this executive order, the latest in a series of court rulings rejecting the Trump administration’s attempt to ban birthright citizenship. No politician or president has the authority to decide who is “worthy” of citizenship.
Alongside our lawsuit, the ACLU published the briefing paper President Trump’s Attack on Birthright Citizenship, which outlines potential threats to states and recommendations for Congress and state and local officials.
Right to asylum
On January 20, President Trump shut down the phone app CBP One, the last remaining way for people on the southern border to seek asylum, canceling thousands of appointments that had already been scheduled (and that people had already made immense sacrifices to be able to attend). The ACLU asked a federal court to immediately hold a hearing on the Trump administration’s abrupt shutdown of CBP One and consider our arguments showing why, with CBP One now gone, the existing border restrictions are even more clearly illegal.
Just a couple of weeks later, we and our partner organizations filed another lawsuit over the president’s proclamation aimed at completely shutting down asylum at the border, a move that puts thousands of lives at risk.
Ensuring due process to prevent mass deportations
We’re challenging the Trump administration’s plan to massively expand fast-track deportations without a fair legal process. The expanded, expedited removal mimics a similar policy pushed by the first Trump administration, which the ACLU and our partners Make the Road New York also challenged.
The new policy means that Border Patrol agents can pull someone over and determine whether they should be deported in less than an hour. This is less due process than when people get a traffic ticket—and with far greater consequences.
Justice for immigrants detained at Guantánamo
The Trump administration has begun detaining immigrants at Guantánamo Bay and is providing virtually no information about their status, including how long they will be held there, under what authority and conditions, subject to what legal processes or whether they will have any means of communicating with their families and attorneys.
The ACLU and our partners are suing the administration to ensure that those detained in Guantánamo have access to legal services and demanding that any further transfers of immigrants to Guantánamo be halted.
A plan for justice beyond the courtroom
The ACLU has created a playbook for states that want to safeguard our rights. It’s called Firewall for Freedom and it includes practical guidance and policies for state advocates to protect our immigrant communities and our constitutional rights. We are working with our state-based affiliates nationwide so that their governors, attorneys general, state legislatures and local officials act as bulwarks even amid these assaults on our freedoms.
At the same time, ACLU organizers are on the ground in communities, sharing Know Your Rights information regarding interactions with ICE and organizing volunteers nationwide.
With your support, we’ll be able to continue fighting—and winning—to protect immigrant communities and all of us.
Learn more about the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights project here.
Posted on March 10, 2025
On voting rights: CREDO Mobile makes a difference
Recently, we sent a significant grant to Black Voters Matter, which works to increase power in marginalized, predominantly Black communities and help them determine their own destiny through the ballot box.
CREDO Mobile is a committed supporter of Black Voters Matter and our funding has powered many of the group’s campaigns. As voter-suppression tactics continue to impact elections around the country, we’ll continue working with Black Voters Matter to support individuals and organizations striving to obtain social justice—on Election Day and every day.
Building the power to make change
Black Voters Matter (BVM) has made its own grants totaling over $6 million to 336 partner organizations in the states where it operates. These grants have enabled those organizations to strengthen their efforts in areas like capacity-building, getting out the vote and voter registration, environmental justice, criminal justice and healthcare.
In the run-up to the recent election, BVM also held partner trainings on the Volunteer Action Network to help promote volunteerism and civic engagement. These trainings helped volunteers with walk lists and phone banks, and provided additional support from BVM volunteers to ensure that BVM partners had the capacity to build resources to reach and educate members of their communities.
BVM also implemented peer-to-peer texting programs and assisted with printed education and advocacy materials that helped grow partner networks to provide content aimed at voter engagement.
BVM scored many other victories in the 2024 election.
- It sent over 19 million text messages, including 4 million texts prior to National Voter Registration Day.
- BVM volunteers and staff members reached residents across the country encouraging voters to check their registration status and/or provide early voting and polling location information.
- BVM made over 45,000 door-knock attempts and nearly 350, 000 phone calls.
- It ran 30 voter-engagement bus tours in GA, LA, AL, SC, TX, MS, OH, TN, FL, NC, PA, VA, WI, AZ and MD.
Gathering strength for future elections
Here are some of the new projects Black Voters Matter has launched with support from CREDO Mobile.
The We Fight Back campaign asks Black people nationwide to share what they’re fighting back against in their own lives. This provides an opportunity for greater understanding, community building and authentic engagement.
BVM’s Sick and Tired initiative, in partnership with American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, focuses on the need for Medicaid expansion and greater access to equitable and affordable healthcare for Black and rural communities. Recently, BVM has traveled to Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida to host eight showings of a health-equity film hold discussions. It has also organized community-centered health and wellness fairs.
BVM continues to educate and advocate for Black Americans around the issues that affect their lives. BVM’s Block is Hot 3.0 bus tour crisscrossed Georgia in collaboration with Kendall Rae, the youngest certified farmer in Georgia at just 8 years old. The tour offered sustainability training, with discussions about energy burden, water pollution and utility justice. As a result of the bus tour, many Georgia residents engaged directly with their cities to establish ongoing pop-up farmers markets catering to folks who don’t have grocery stores nearby. By providing education and tools for sustainable living, BVM’s environmental justice work increases power and resilience in BIPOC communities.
As part of BVM’s youth-engagement campaign, its Black Youth Renaissance Tour recently transported six charter buses of rural college students to Atlanta to attend a rally and provided training in the different tools they need to engage with their peers on campus. Students felt more empowered to engage in dorm storms, debate-watch parties and election-watch parties, and to combat disinformation.
Recently, BVM has worked in collaboration with Growing Real Alternatives Everywhere to hold nine Warrant Clinics in Georgia, Michigan, Louisiana and Alabama. These resulted in over 600 warrants rescinded, and fine and court costs forgiven. Efforts like this give members of the community the increased economic mobility that being able to drive freely provides and liberate them from the fear and stress of outstanding fines and/or a suspended license, risk of jail time or public housing denial.
Winning with CREDO Mobile
Black Voters Matter was able to do all these things because CREDO Mobile customers do one thing: they use our service. When they do, they raise much-needed donations for progressive nonprofit groups like BVM. These donations cost our customers nothing—but they mean everything to the nonprofits we fund.
If you’re a CREDO Mobile member, thank you. If you’re not a member, please join us now. You’ll get all you want from your mobile service: the nation’s top-rated, most reliable network, competitive plans and great deals on new devices.
And you’ll get much more. You’ll get a powerful way to support your values whenever you use your phone.
Switching is easy. You can bring your current device and your current number. Go to CREDOMobile.com to learn more.
Posted on March 8, 2025
This March, CREDO Mobile is Supporting Amazon Watch, the ACLU and Americans For Tax Fairness
This spring, CREDO Mobile is excited to support 3 nonprofits doing important work. The donations will be allocated at the end of the month based on the number of votes for each organization. You can vote for 1, 2 or all 3 nonprofits at www.credodonations.com
Amazon Watch
Amazon Watch partners with Indigenous peoples to protect the Amazon and advance climate justice. Since 1996, they have helped defend millions of acres of bioculturally diverse rainforest and mobilized support for 1,000+ Indigenous-led projects in the Amazon. Indigenous peoples are the best guardians of the Amazon, its biodiversity & our common climate future. With extractive industries pushing the Amazon to its tipping point, you can help move to a turning point by protecting Indigenous rights and territories.
American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)
For more than 25 years, the ACLU has led major legal battles for immigrants’ rights, focusing on challenging laws that deny immigrants access to the courts, impose indefinite and mandatory detention, and discriminate on the basis of nationality. Funding from CREDO will support critical strategic litigation, advocacy, and organizing needed to take on ICE and Border Patrol abuses and violations, help to pave a path to citizenship for thousands, and uphold all our civil liberties. We refuse to yield until all people can live openly without discrimination and enjoy equal rights no matter who is in the White House.
Americans for Tax Fairness
Americans For Tax Fairness is a coalition of over 400 endorsing organizations united in the belief that rich people and corporations need to start paying their fair share of taxes to reduce economic inequallity and raise the revenue we need to properly serve public needs. A CREDO grant would support our campaign for a fairer tax system that brings in more revenue from the rich and corporations to better fund services for working families. Our public education, online advocacy & organizing efforts would all benefit.
These donations are funded by our CREDO Mobile customers. If you are a CREDO Mobile customer, thank you. If you are not, check out CREDO Mobile and see how your mobile phone can make a difference in the world.
Posted on March 8, 2025
Donations spotlight: Support Indigenous peoples defending the Amazon and our climate with Amazon Watch
Note from the CREDO Mobile team: This March, Amazon Watch is among three amazing groups that will receive a share of our monthly grant. Funding from the CREDO Mobile community will help Amazon Watch defend this Earth-critical ecosystem in solidarity with the Indigenous peoples who have stewarded this land for centuries.
Read this important blog post from Amazon Watch, then visit CREDO Donations and cast your vote to help send much-needed grant money to the group to assist its efforts—and the efforts of our other outstanding March grantees.
The Amazon connects us all. It’s the world’s largest rainforest, home to 10% of the Earth’s biodiversity and 20% of all flowing freshwater. It stabilizes our climate, supporting the health of ecosystems and our communities around the world. It’s also home to 511 Indigenous nations, who are leaders in stewarding and defending their ancestral homelands in the heart of our planet.
This global treasure of biodiversity, cultural diversity, and climate resilience faces a grave tipping point. Destructive industries and their financial backers are destroying the rainforest for short-term profit, at the expense of Amazonian communities and our collective future. Indigenous peoples are on the front lines resisting destruction and advancing real solutions. The portions of the forest where Indigenous rights and solutions are respected are by far the best protected and least degraded. This has been the root of Amazon Watch’s mission for 30 years: to defend the rainforest and our global climate in solidarity with Indigenous peoples.
Amazon Watch works in long-term partnership with Indigenous peoples in campaigns for climate justice, corporate accountability, and the preservation of the Amazon. We’ve won significant victories protecting millions of acres of rainforest and mobilized support for more than 1,000 Indigenous-led projects in Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru. Our campaigns focus on ending oil extraction and mining in the biome, securing Indigenous land rights, and defending Earth Defenders who face threats and violence for their leadership. We also mobilize solidarity funds directly to Indigenous partners at their request, weaving a network of solidarity that connects donors from around the world with Amazonian peoples on the front lines. CREDO members have contributed to this powerful network since 2018!
As threats to our climate and communities increase, the protection of the Amazon – an ecosystem of immense importance to our entire planet – is more vital than ever. Our collective action is our greatest strength for moving toward a more just and resilient future. Even against overwhelming odds, Indigenous peoples and their allies have defended territories from colonization and destructive industries, resisting some of the most well-resourced companies in the world.
In the spirit of hope and collective action, here are some of the victories that the Indigenous-led movement for the Amazon achieved in 2024:
Delaying Brazil’s largest open-pit gold mine: a Brazilian federal court annulled the contract for the Volta Grande gold mine, a project by Canadian company Belo Sun that threatens irreversible harm to the mega-biodiverse ecosystem of the Xingu River basin. Thanks to years of dedicated action by communities, activists, and allies like Amazon Watch, this ruling is a victory for the environment and for Indigenous Earth Defenders who fought for their sacred ecosystem even in the face of serious threats from mining proponents.
Uplifting women’s leadership: Indigenous women play a vital role in defending and revitalizing their ancestral homelands, but they face intense risks and violence for their leadership. Amazon Watch accompanies Indigenous women leaders to grow their influence and broaden opportunities for participation in key decision-making spaces, from Indigenous organizations and local forums to national and international governing spaces. Thanks to the support of our community, in 2024 Amazon Watch continued amplifying women’s voices in the fight for territorial defense and environmental justice, including through supporting women-led gatherings, implementing safety measures for Defenders at risk, and coordinating travel to important advocacy and decision-making events.
Halting Petroperú’s expansion: This past year, Amazon Watch played a key role in halting the dangerous expansion of Petroperú, Peru’s state-owned oil company. Working in partnership with the Chapra, Wampis, and Achuar nations, we released a report exposing Petroperú’s financial, environmental, and social liabilities. Three major credit downgrades followed, delaying a critical $1 billion bond issuance and creating uncertainty for Petroperú’s operations. When the entire Petroperú board resigned in September, the tide turned decisively, with banks increasingly reluctant to fund this hazardous enterprise and their destructive plans to drill in Indigenous territories.
Advancing Indigenous land titling in Brazil: After decades of struggle, the Mundurukú people achieved a critical milestone in securing their ancestral territory, Sawré Muybu. In September 2024, Brazil’s Minister of Justice officially “declared” Sawré Muybu, advancing it towards the final stage of demarcation (official titling). Amazon Watch has accompanied the Mundurukú for over a decade through coordinated grassroots organizing, media advocacy, and direct engagement with government officials.
The Amazon is at a tipping point, but our collective victories show us a powerful pathway forward. By standing in principled solidarity with Indigenous communities, amplifying their solutions, and directly challenging industries fueling the Amazon’s destruction, we will continue to protect the rainforest, the communities that steward it, and our collective future. Thank you to the CREDO community for helping to make these achievements possible! Together, we will continue the fight for climate justice, biodiversity, and the health of the heart of our planet – the Amazon.
Posted on March 1, 2025
Donations spotlight: Support Americans for Tax Fairness in its fight to make the wealthy pay their fair share
Note from the CREDO Mobile team: This March, Americans for Tax Fairness is among three amazing groups that will receive a share of our monthly grant. Funding from the CREDO Mobile community will be vital to the nonprofit as it fights to build an economy that works for all of us by making the wealthy and big corporations pay their fair share in taxes.
Read this important blog post from Americans for Tax Fairness, then visit CREDO Donations and cast your vote to help send much-needed grant money to the group to assist its efforts—and the efforts of our other outstanding March grantees.
Should billionaires and big corporations get even more tax cuts? And should we slash healthcare, housing and education to pay for them?
We’re in the middle of a generational fight. President Trump wants to extend his 2017 tax cuts and funnel over $5 trillion to, largely, the ultrawealthy and large corporations. To pay for those cuts, he plans to dismantle essential programs that working-class and middle-class families rely on. At Americans for Tax Fairness, we’re fighting back. We’re a tax-reform coalition of over 400 national and state endorsing organizations with a track record of successfully shaping public opinion on taxes throughout our 13-year history.
Let’s be clear. Trump and his cronies have crafted a tax code—and an economy—that benefits the elite at the expense of working people. Since 2017, the wealth of billionaires has soared to record heights while working-class and middle-class families have fallen behind. The goal of the wealthy now is to entrench this unfair system, further fatten their bank accounts and tighten their grip on our democracy and our economy.
Make no mistake. Working families will pay, one way or another. Wealthy people won’t. Trump, his billionaire co-president Elon Musk and their ideological partners in Congress are trying to cut trillions of dollars from public services, including Medicaid, climate response, education and food assistance.
A massive redistribution of wealth
Another way the Republicans plan to fund their tax cuts for the wealthy is by adding to the national debt. This sort of deficit-spending is a smart strategy during recessions or other national emergencies, when it’s needed to support the economy and working families. But running up huge debt just to fund tax cuts for the rich is a disgraceful waste. Higher national debt tends to drive up interest rates, which makes anything consumers buy on credit—from houses to cars to appliances—more expensive.
All told, the GOP’s fiscal plans represent a massive redistribution of wealth upward from the middle class and working class to the richest people in our country. At ATF, we’re dedicated to making sure the American people recognize, understand and remember the grand larceny that’s happening before our eyes and hold accountable those who are responsible.
We have the tools and experience to accomplish this goal. Our broad coalition includes labor unions, think tanks, women’s organizations, civil rights groups and many other representatives of the progressive movement. For over a dozen years, we’ve been educating Congress, the media and the general public on the real-world impact of tax policy.
Working with our coalition members and allies over the past year, we’ve met with the staff of all the Democratic leaders in Congress and the tax-writing committees—150 Capitol Hill meetings in all—to press the proven case that the American people want corporations and the rich to pay more in taxes, not receive more tax cuts.
We released a dozen full-scale national reports in 2024, most of them focused on tax-dodging and other financial misbehavior by hyper-wealthy people and big corporations. Our social media messaging continues to shine, racking up tens of millions of impressions across platforms while often setting the tone and framing for progressive economic messaging.
In traditional media, last year we reached a potential audience of 7 billion people. This includes over 1,500 digital and print articles across five different languages in major national outlets like ABC, CNBC, the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal and Axios.
A plan for resistance
The American people are understandably overwhelmed by the chaotic aggressions of the Trump administration. Americans for Tax Fairness is singularly well-positioned to fight back against the largest single piece of that punishing agenda: GOP plans to cut taxes further on the rich and big corporations and make the rest of us pay for it. Working with allies old and new, we’ll make sure the American people know what’s happening. Working together, we will resist and we will win.
To learn more, please visit us online at Americans for Tax Fairness.
Posted on February 19, 2025
Fake news is everywhere—and it’s dangerous. Here’s how to know it when you see it
In the good old days, fake news was funny. “I married Bigfoot.” “Computer virus spreads to humans!” We saw stuff like that at the supermarket checkout counter and we laughed.
Now, fake news is everywhere—and it’s no joke. Sometimes it’s dangerous. As it was in 2016, when a North Carolina man drove to a Washington, D.C., pizzeria with an assault rifle to “investigate” the Pizzagate conspiracy theory, which claimed (falsely) that Hillary Clinton’s inner circle was running a pedophilia ring out of the restaurant.
Since then, it’s gotten a lot worse. Misinformation dominates the national conversation. It’s online, on the radio, on TV. It’s all over social media. Often, it’s not obviously fake. It’s believable, it’s shareable—and it has the power to cause not only societal damage but individual harm.
Fake news warps your brain (yes really)
Truth is a virtue, fake news is a virus—and it spreads just as fast. A few years ago, researchers measured the speed and scope with which fake news propagates on social media. They followed over 125,000 “rumor cascades” on Twitter and found that fake news reached far more people than the truth, with the top 1% of rumors spreading to between 1,000 and 100,000 people, while the truth rarely reached more than 1,000 people. Rumors also spread much faster than the truth, driven by the emotions (usually anger) they’re designed to provoke.
Mainstream media outlets have fact-checking procedures to guard against fake news (for now, anyway). Social media platforms have no such protections. Elon Musk dismantled X’s content-moderation system several years ago. At the start of 2025, Mark Zuckerberg followed suit, killing the content moderation at Meta and replacing it with a “community” system similar to X’s.
So, it’s mostly up to you to check the veracity of the “news” you read or hear or watch on the internet. Do you really need to? For your mental health, yes. Research shows that even a few minutes of exposure to fake news can subconsciously rewire your brain. Without you even realizing it, fake news will provoke an emotional reaction, implant false memories and reinforce existing biases. It will stick in your brain and continue to affect your thinking, whether you like it or not.
Let’s say you read a false and defamatory story about a political candidate. Research shows that, even though you know the story is false, the information will linger in the back of your mind and trigger a negative emotion anytime you hear about the candidate in the future.
Take these steps to spot fake news
Mike Caulfield is a digital literacy expert who focuses on fake news and how to detect it. He’s the author of Verified: How to Think Straight, Get Duped Less and Make Better Decisions About What to Believe Online and he’s the creator of the SIFT method for evaluating online content.
These are the four steps of SIFT. They’re easy and they’re well worth applying as you make your way around the internet.
- Stop. When you come across a piece of content, read the headline, then pause and take note of your emotional response. Headlines are written to grab your attention (they’re clickbait) and they do it most effectively by triggering an emotional reaction. Before you read, watch or share the content, think what you already know about the topic.
- Investigate the source. Google the publisher of the content and see what the internet says about it. Is there a lot of information on the publisher or very little? Also question the publisher’s motivation. Does it have a vested interest or financial motivation? Remember those conservative influencers who last year were being paid millions to spread false information that promoted Kremlin interests.
- Find better coverage. Check any content published by an unestablished platform against an outlet you know and trust. If a claim is controversial, odds are it’s been looked into already by online fact-checkers. Many of them are nonprofit, nonpartisan websites. Good ones include FactCheck.org, Snopes.com and PolitiFact. There’s also Google Fact Check, which searches only fact-checking sites. If you want to check the trustworthiness of an image, you can run a reverse image search at sites like TinEye and Yandex.
- Trace claims to their original context. If you see a claim that’s controversial or surprising, try to find out where it originated. Your goal is discover if the claim was taken out of context to create an emotional response and grab attention. Images, for example, can have many different meanings depending on their context. The same goes for quotes.
CREDO Mobile is your true connection
Looking for a phone company that shares your progressive values? There’s only one: CREDO Mobile.
We support the same causes you do. Causes like equal rights, climate stability and a fair economy. To date, we’ve donated over $95 million to nonprofit groups dedicated to these progressive values and many others. Groups like Friends of the Earth, Black Voters Matter and the National LGBTQ Task Force.
Join us and you’ll get all you want from your mobile service: competitive plans, great deals on new devices and the nation’s top-rated, most reliable network.
And you’ll get much more. You’ll get an easy, effective way to make a difference in the world. CREDO Mobile generates much-needed donations for progressive nonprofits dedicated to the causes you care about.
Switching is simple. You can bring your current device and your current number. Go to CREDOMobile.com to learn more.
Posted on February 11, 2025
A Valentine’s Day message about love, hope, hard work—and how we can win in the end
Love conquers all, it is said. Not really, of course. And especially not now, it seems, as authoritarians around the world fan the fire of hate and ride it to power.
And yet all is not as it seems. Because, over time, with hope, passion and hard work, those of us who believe in love, who care about our planet and the people we share it with—we can win.
We know we can because we’ve done it before. Marriage equality is one example—and a good one, on this Valentine’s Day. It’s now the law of the land. But there was a time, not so long ago, when it seemed marriage equality would never happen. In 2004, an election year, conservatives were so confident in the anti-gay bias of voters that they put same-sex marriage bans on the ballot in 13 states—and won in all 13.
And yet look now. Marriage equality is the law nationwide and enjoys at least a plurality of public support in every U.S. state. Two-thirds of Americans are in favor of marriage equality.
Working together, we did it
Here at CREDO Mobile, we’ve been fighting for marriage equality since our founding, in 1985. Long before the Supreme Court’s 2015 decision in Obergefell v. Hodges, which made same-sex marriage legal across the U.S., hundreds of thousands of CREDO Mobile customers took action for the cause. In the years prior to Obergefell, we fought for and won the freedom for all to marry in dozens of states.
We also donated millions of dollars to groups working for marriage equality, including the National LGBTQ Task Force, Freedom to Marry, Courage Campaign, the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network, International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Campaign and the ACLU.
The campaign was long and it was difficult. But in the end we won. And we proved that individuals working together can overcome immense challenges, change millions of minds and win for causes that improve the lives of many people, not just the powerful few.
So what else can we do?
In 2004, 60% of Americans opposed same-sex marriage. Today, 69% of Americans support it. This didn’t happen by chance. It happened because those of us who have always believed in marriage equality worked hard for a lot of years and made it happen.
In that 2004 election, bans on marriage equality won in all 13 of the states where they were on the ballot. Today, bans on marriage equality would undoubtedly be defeated in all states but a few. The only way now for religious extremists to overturn the Obergefell precedent would be by decision of the Supreme Court. So yes, given the court’s current makeup, we can’t let our guard down.
But we can get our hopes up. Even now, as the cloud of a vengeful political movement casts darkness across the country, we can keep our dreams alight, knowing that if we have patience and work hard we can win for the causes we care about. We did it on marriage equality. And we can do it again—on climate change, reproductive rights and any other issue we put our collective shoulder to.
We recently celebrated Martin Luther King Jr. Day. We should remember what he once said: “The arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice.” We should also remember that it only bends if people put in the effort to bend it.
Join the phone company that shares your values
One phone company puts in that effort. One stands with you in support of marriage equality and other progressive values: CREDO Mobile.
To date, we’ve donated over $95 million to nonprofit groups dedicated to the causes you care about. Groups like Friends of the Earth, Reproductive Freedom For All, Social Security Works and Family Equality. Causes like climate action, equal rights and reproductive freedom.
Join us and you’ll get all you want from your mobile service: competitive plans, great deals on new devices and the nation’s top-rated, most reliable network.
And you’ll get much more. You’ll get an easy, effective way to make positive change by generating donations for nonprofits that fight for a better world. These donations cost you nothing extra—but they mean everything to the groups we support.
Switching is easy. You can bring your current device and your current number. Go to CREDOMobile.com to learn more.
