What’s a VPN? What does it do? How does it work?

This is what our end-of-year drive is all about.

Today is #GivingTuesday, a special day when the Internet community gives back by supporting changemakers around the world. 

Article written by OpenMedia volunteer Rozali Telbis. Huge thanks for all her help provided with our community survey!  It’s that time of year again: we are pleased to announce the results from the 2015 community survey. We’re thrilled by the response— with 6,500 supporters from 87 different countries taking part.  As a volunteer, I assisted with the data analysis of this year’s survey. The process of collecting and analyzing your responses has inspired and reinvigorated my own personal fight for an open, free, and accessible Internet. 

Today, we’re asking you to take part in our annual community survey, where we’ll be asking you about the digital rights issues you care most about. OpenMedia is based on shared values of collaborative decision-making, openness, and community-driven positive change. Our best ideas come from our incredible community members. This August, we want to hear about what matters to you. So far in 2015 you’ve: Stalled the secretive TPP’s Internet censorship plan and stirred public outcry Rallied over 275,000 people against C-51’s intrusive spying Turned crowdsourced feedback into real Telecom policy. Now, it’s time to let us know: what do you care most about to help guide our work going forward?

Modern Journalism couldn’t happen without the power to link freely. And here’s just one example to show us the gravity of the situation: Last year, U.S. journalist and privacy activist Barrett Brown was sentenced to over five years in jail. He had initially been indicted in 2012 on charges stemming from links he posted online. The links he posted–which he was later proven never even to have opened–pointed to material sourced from a hack on StratFor, a shady intelligence contractor with close ties to the U.S. government and many large corporations. Those charges were later dropped, but Brown was eventually sent to jail for obstructing the FBI investigation into the links he’d posted online. Ironically, he wouldn’t have felt a need to hide his laptop when the FBI came knocking had they not come knocking in the first place.

You’ve probably heard the old description of the Internet as a “series of tubes.” The quotation by U.S. Senator Ted Stevens made for a lot of laughs, but it wasn’t a great description: the Internet you and I browse in the form of the world wide web is better described as a series of links. Web content is hosted on one or more computers and then accessed by others. In the same way you might tell a friend about a new taco restaurant, a link tells your computer where to find a given piece of content. Without links to route everyone around the web, we wouldn’t have an Internet. They power Facebook, they power Google, they power your favorite blog, they power everything. Links aren’t good or bad. They’re the online equivalent of roads, moving people around the Internet.

You’ve probably heard the old description of the Internet as a “series of tubes.” The quotation by U.S. Senator Ted Stevens made for a lot of laughs, but it wasn’t a great description: the Internet you and I browse in the form of the world wide web is better described as a series of links. Web content is hosted on one or more computers and then accessed by others. In the same way you might tell a friend about a new taco restaurant, a link tells your computer where to find a given piece of content. Without links to route everyone around the web, we wouldn’t have an Internet. They power Facebook, they power Google, they power your favorite blog, they power everything. Links aren’t good or bad. They’re the online equivalent of roads, moving people around the Internet.

Hi there, I’m Chris Malmo, a grassroots development coordinator at OpenMedia, and it’s my job to help our community interact and communicate with our team. It’s been a big year for your OpenMedia team, but I’d like to step back and think about the movement we’re a part of and what it all means. As the first generation to come online, we have a responsibility to leave the best possible Internet for those to come-- people with dreams just like ours of the possibilities of the free and open Internet.

Hi there, I’m Chris Malmo, a grassroots development coordinator at OpenMedia, and it’s my job to help our community interact and communicate with our team. It’s been a big year for your OpenMedia team, but I’d like to step back and think about what it all means and the movement we’re a part of. As the first generation to come online, we have a responsibility to leave the best possible Internet for future people with dreams just like ours.