Earlier this year, a massive Internet blackout strike and millions of signatures on online petitions put pressure on Congress and defeated the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA), two bills that would have allowed the government and big media conglomerates to censor the web in the name of protecting copyrighted material.
Now, the coalition of activists and groups that led the fight against SOPA and PIPA have issued a Declaration of Internet Freedom, and after only a few days of online circulation, more than 100 groups and more than 33,000 individuals have signed on in support. Truthout has decided to join them.
There will be more SOPA-like threats to web freedom in the future. From Amnesty International to Mozilla and Cheezburger Inc., web entrepreneurs, developers and activists agree that the fight to protect the Internet from censorship, surveillance and discrimination is only beginning.
As witnessed during the Arab Spring and the rise of the Occupy movement, the Internet gives grassroots social movements the ability to quickly organize big groups of people, share information, build solidarity and hold those in power accountable.
Allowing big business and the government to censor and regulate the web would also stifle innovation and give media conglomerates a competitive edge against entrepreneurs and start-ups.
SOPA, for example, would have granted big media conglomerates the power to ask the government to investigate and even shut down innovating web start-ups if users used the platforms to post or share copyrighted content. The Declaration of Internet Freedom demands that leaders do not punish innovators for their users’ actions.
The Declaration of Internet Freedom also aims at protecting privacy, freedom of expression online, affordable access to the web and an open network “where everyone is free to connect, communicate, write, read, watch, speak, listen, learn, create and innovate.” At Truthout, we believe freedom of speech online and everywhere else is a basic and vital human right.
We must be proactive about protecting our freedoms online. Free Press, one of the groups promoting the declaration, hopes it will spark a “global discussion” about protecting the Internet in the future. The online discussion has already begun on sites like Cheezburger and Reddit.
You can read and sign the Declaration of Internet Freedom here. Join us.
We’re not backing down in the face of Trump’s threats.
As Donald Trump is inaugurated a second time, independent media organizations are faced with urgent mandates: Tell the truth more loudly than ever before. Do that work even as our standard modes of distribution (such as social media platforms) are being manipulated and curtailed by forces of fascist repression and ruthless capitalism. Do that work even as journalism and journalists face targeted attacks, including from the government itself. And do that work in community, never forgetting that we’re not shouting into a faceless void – we’re reaching out to real people amid a life-threatening political climate.
Our task is formidable, and it requires us to ground ourselves in our principles, remind ourselves of our utility, dig in and commit.
As a dizzying number of corporate news organizations – either through need or greed – rush to implement new ways to further monetize their content, and others acquiesce to Trump’s wishes, now is a time for movement media-makers to double down on community-first models.
At Truthout, we are reaffirming our commitments on this front: We won’t run ads or have a paywall because we believe that everyone should have access to information, and that access should exist without barriers and free of distractions from craven corporate interests. We recognize the implications for democracy when information-seekers click a link only to find the article trapped behind a paywall or buried on a page with dozens of invasive ads. The laws of capitalism dictate an unending increase in monetization, and much of the media simply follows those laws. Truthout and many of our peers are dedicating ourselves to following other paths – a commitment which feels vital in a moment when corporations are evermore overtly embedded in government.
Over 80 percent of Truthout‘s funding comes from small individual donations from our community of readers, and the remaining 20 percent comes from a handful of social justice-oriented foundations. Over a third of our total budget is supported by recurring monthly donors, many of whom give because they want to help us keep Truthout barrier-free for everyone.
You can help by giving today during our fundraiser. We have 7 days to add 432 new monthly donors. Whether you can make a small monthly donation or a larger gift, Truthout only works with your support.