Who we are
OpenMedia is a grassroots group that fights for the open Internet, through OpenMedia International and OpenMedia.ca.
OpenMedia International brings the global pro-Internet community together, empowering people to participate in Internet governance through fresh and engaging citizens campaigns. We provide the Internet freedom movement with a platform to pressure leaders everywhere when bureaucrats and lobbyists threaten our digital future.
Prior to launching OpenMedia International, our Canadian operation, OpenMedia.ca, successfully defended the Internet from threats to openness, affordability, privacy and media choice. With encouragement from our dedicated supporters, in 2012 we took our effective model of rallying people to the global level, to fight back against worldwide threats.
From the beginning the Internet has always been about us: those who use the Internet to connect with one another, to create, to express ourselves, and to make our lives just a little bit easier. The Internet has no borders, and neither should we.
Our Work
OpenMedia engages, educates, and empowers people to safeguard the open and affordable Internet through our citizen-driven campaigns.
Our founding organization, OpenMedia.ca, is perhaps best known for co-ordinating Stop The Meter, the largest online campaign in Canadian history, involving over half-a-million people. We’ve proven that the pro-Internet community can come together and make change.
Bringing citizen voices to government:
- Appearing at regulatory proceedings, trade negotiations, and other forums for policymaking on behalf of citizens.
- Meeting with politicians to push for more citizen-centered policies.
- Creating tools that allow citizens to communicate directly with their MPs and other decision-makers.
Informed, in-depth research that shapes policy such as:
- Casting an Open Net, our comprehensive report on citizen-centered digital policy.
- Spectrum policy in Canada, our plan to level the playing field and increase choice in the cell phone market.
- Policy submissions to government processes, created in collaboration with our community of experts
Grassroots fundraising that keeps us accountable to the pro-Internet community. Read more about how we’re supported »
Educational Events and Collaboration
- Maintaining our network of supporting organizations
- The Fresh Media event series in Vancouver, Canada
- Media Democracy Day
- Ongoing collaboration with our community of supporters
Structure
OpenMedia operates as a network that has come together to advance fundamental democratic principles that we feel should guide media, telecommunications, and cultural policymaking around the world.
Principles
OpenMedia is a network that has come together based on the following principles:
Access
Every citizen, business and civic institution must have access to a high-speed communications and media infrastructure. Fast, affordable Internet access is a cornerstone for access to news and information, economic development, participatory democracy and healthy communities. Media, telecommunications and information policy should be more transparent, with broader and more representative public participation.
Choice
Every citizen should enjoy real choice and diverse options for news, online content and Internet service providers. Fostering real options for Internet access and content will help lower prices and increase Internet speeds, strengthening our digital future. To ensure choice is informed, we believe citizens need access to media literacy, knowledge and media production programs more than ever before.
Diversity
Communications infrastructure, media ecology and policy framework should promote diversity and support cultural creators, media workers, citizen producers and consumers.
Diverse ownership models, including independent, non-profit, campus, community and public media, help to ensure more diverse content and voices. An open, non-discriminatory Internet is a precursor to media and communication diversity.
Innovation
The world needs a media system and digital infrastructure that drives innovation at all levels: social innovation, media innovation, and economic innovation. The Internet should continue to foster free expression, entrepreneurship, spread new ideas and serve as an engine for the innovation economy.
Openness
An open media system is essential to our democracy. Every citizen should enjoy basic communication rights, including freedom of expression, privacy and access to information online and off, without gatekeepers or discrimination. We advocate for Net Neutrality rules that ensure Internet users have open access to the applications and content of their choice. Open standards should be adopted for telecommunication networks, data, documents, software, maps, governance and other media wherever possible.