Another Year of Advocating and Fighting for a Healthy Internet

By Rizwan Tufail and Amy Schapiro

Hard to believe, isn’t it, that it was just a little less than a year ago that the FCC pulled the carpet from under the feet of millions of Americans by attacking the net neutrality protections afforded by its own decision two years back. The internet of opportunity, accessibility and affordability was gone, a victim of corporate greed and political complicity.

The silver lining: that single act seems to have energized a diverse set of actors, new and old, into the collective fight for a healthy internet. On net neutrality, hundreds of organizations joined the Battle for the Net. In Europe, thousands tried — albeit unsuccessfully — to Save Your Internet. Up North, the Canada’s Internet campaign took hold.

Meanwhile, tired of the divisiveness facilitated by the social media platforms that we use, a coalition of organizations demanded those platforms Change The Terms. The fight for a healthy internet, it seemed, had received a badly needed shot in the arm.

Neither the fight for a healthy internet, nor the need for a broad coalition to drive this change, is new to us at Mozilla. As an organization whose mission is to protect the internet as a global public resource, open, and accessible for all, we have long been fueling a broad, distributed movement for internet health.

Mozilla’s support for others fighting for a healthy internet is equally long-standing. As far back as 2015, Mozilla partnered with the Ford Foundation to empower leaders capable of defending the open web. These leaders work with NGOs that are at the forefront of the fight for our digital future, fighting for digital rights and freedoms, ensuring press freedoms, protecting civil liberties, standing up for gender equality, and using media to protect the vulnerable.

Over the years, other funders have joined, expanding the scope, but the central purpose of empowering activists for a healthy web remains.

2018 was another year of us supporting these web activists and the digital rights activism organizations that host them. Just a handful of examples:

• Mozilla Fellow Rebecca Ricks, working with Human Rights Watch, created a game called Everyday Encryption that helped explain encryption to average users, giving these users the tools to protect themselves.
• Mozilla Fellow Gigi Sohn, one of the nation’s leading public advocates for open, affordable, and democratic communications networks, helped users understand the implications of the net neutrality ruling.
• Mozilla Fellow Hang Do Thi Duc revealed how Venmo comprises users’ privacy. With Mozilla’s Advocacy team, Hang then built a petition for users to demand that their privacy be respected by Venmo.
• Mozilla Fellow Rishab Nithyanand,hosted at Data and Society, helped users understand the extent of third party tracking of their everyday surfing activities.
• Mozilla Fellow Aleksandar Todorović built a consumer rights tool called My Data Done Right, helping citizens take back control of their data in a GDPR era
• Mozilla Fellow Nasma Ahmed took one step further, creating the Digital Justice Lab to engage with diverse communities in building more just and equitable futures.

Collectively, these actions helped individuals across the world take back some control and increased awareness about pressing internet issues. Armed with this understanding, many more users can now demand a better, transparent and more open web for all, in 2019 and beyond.

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