Hope lies, instead, with our power as citizens. We must demand that legislators and regulators get tougher. They should go after Facebook on antitrust grounds. Facebook is by far the dominant social platform in the United States, with 68 percent of American adults using it, according to the Pew Research Center. That means Facebook can gobble up potential competitors, as it already has with Instagram, and crowd out upstarts in fields such as artificial intelligence and virtual reality.

The Department of Justice should consider severing WhatsApp, Instagram and Messenger from Facebook, much as it broke up AT&T in 1982. That breakup unleashed creativity, improved phone service and lowered prices. It also limited the political power of AT&T.

The European Union has already stepped up its legal efforts to protect data. Its General Data Protection Regulation, which goes into effect in May, is intended to ensure that users understand and consent to data collection and how that data is used. Users won’t have to agree to give access to their data to start using a product.

As with some recent American consumer finance regulations, data collection policies under the new European Union rules must be clear, concise and in plain language. Companies will have to declare up front how they will use the data, and users can withdraw consent at any time. This should significantly deter many abuses that companies like Facebook and Google have committed. It won’t repair the sins of the past. But it’s something.

Regulatory interventions have limitations. As long as Facebook is big and rich, its algorithms will determine and distort much of what we read and watch. Our long-term agenda should be to bolster institutions that foster democratic deliberation and the rational pursuit of knowledge. These include scientific organizations, universities, libraries, museums, newspapers and civic organizations. They have all been enfeebled over recent years as our resources and attention have shifted to the tiny addictive devices in our hands.

If we act together as citizens to champion these changes, we have a chance to curb the problems that Facebook has amplified. If we act as disconnected, indignant moral agents, we surrender the only power we have: the power to think and act collectively. We could even use Facebook to mount campaigns to rein in Facebook. It is, after all, a powerful tool for motivation, even if it’s a terrible tool for deliberation.

So go ahead and quit Facebook if it makes you feel calmer or more productive. Please realize, though, that you might be offloading problems onto those who may have less opportunity to protect privacy and dignity and are more vulnerable to threats to democracy. If the people who care the most about privacy, accountability and civil discourse evacuate Facebook in disgust, the entire platform becomes even less informed and diverse. Deactivation is the opposite of activism.