Three coolest things you, our community, helped fund this year

We are really into letting you know what we do with our funding and with the year coming to an end, we thought we should tell everyone about the three coolest things our supporters made happen this year!

Transparency!

It’s as good for nonprofits as it is bad for pants.

We are really into letting you know what we do with our funding and with the year coming to an end, we thought we should tell everyone about the three coolest things our supporters made happen this year!

1. Facebook founder and plain t-shirt enthusiast Mark Zuckerburg announced plans for Internet.org, a fake internet, one in which competition would not exist and data would be prioritized by Facebook itself; doubling down on their unfair advantage.

So we decided we would make our thoughts known to them on their morning commute! You helped us put up a billboard for 2 straight weeks on the highway near their Bay Area offices.

In response, Facebook got in touch requesting we never do that again (we will take that under advisement) and asking that we send them a letter outlining our concerns and recommendations, which we have done, opening a dialogue to address these problems.

2. Over the past year, your OpenMedia team has observed threats to the right to link emerging, as governments across the globe consider legislation that would restrict hyperlinking on the Web. Hyperlinks are the foundation of the Web; they’re what allows relevant content to be shared freely. Restricting users ability to share links of their choice, or charging to link to content freely available online would be to turn the Internet into a world with only toll-roads. Your favourite website, your twitter feed, even this blog are powered by links. They provide paths to new information and make sharing and collaborating possible. So we should probably get rid of them? Yeah, we thought not.

We knew this had to be addressed, and quickly. So we brought together a broad, international coalition of civil society, content creators, businesses, and activists under a new campaign, and with your help Save The Link was launched. Today, over 90,000 Internet users have joined with us, and our network has been working to protect hyperlinks and the wealth of information and learning they provide.

3. In Canada, Bell Media was attempting to circumvent their responsibility to sell wholesale access to their fibre optic network so that independent internet service providers could have a real chance of not only providing meaningful competition but creating better options for rural communities chronically under-served by Big Telecom.

So we dragged them kicking and screaming to the CRTC. And we won.

Wait, what? Yes, we did. You did. Canada did. Now, they are trying to get out of it again and we will take them on in the new year-with your help.

Everything we do at OpenMedia is informed by and funded through our community of supporters in one way or another. It could be a crowdsourced agenda, a supporter-driven petition, or just putting up a huge billboard telling a giant corporation that they need to shape up and listen to Internet users globally.

And all this was possible because of you.

Jack be nimble, Jack be quick, and Jack learned both those tricks from OpenMedia.