OpenMedia has sent out a message saying that they are having to cut operations. Freezenet is stepping up.
OpenMedia has been doing amazing work over the years. We follow their activities wherever we can and know that their advocacy is hugely important. Whether it is their work on privacy reform, the Online News Act, the Online Streaming Act, and a whole bunch of other issues.
It is a big reason why it became rather concerning when I got a notification recently which read as follows:
I’ve got bad news: with just one week left in our June fundraising drive, we’ve raised less than half the funds we need to keep doing everything we do.
So I’m asking myself… what gets cut?
- Should we stop working on Cybersecurity Bill C-26, and risk our government breaking encryption and surveilling us each and every day?
- Should we tell Bell, Telus and Rogers they’ve won? Give up on affordable, universal Internet access, EVERYWHERE in Canada?
- Should we walk away from Bill S-210, and not worry if search engines, streaming services, and social media require your real life identity just to log on?
- Should we let the AI industry write their own laws in C-27? Is it no big deal if they’re regulated only by the same government minister that funds them?
Letting any of this work go feels completely unacceptable to me. But we simply don’t have the funds right now to continue all of this work.
With so many big issues happening right now in the world of digital rights, the last thing Canadians need is any kind of operational step back on any of these issues. I completely agree with Matt Hatfield when he says that letting go on these issues feels unacceptable.
So, on an emergency basis (I can’t think of a better term right now for this), I have decided to give OpenMedia a massive cash infusion of $1,000. I hope this shot in the arm will help them out at a critical time for the organization. These aren’t exactly the greatest times for asking for money, so it’s understandable that donations can be pretty thin these days. For clarity, Hatfield points out that the organization isn’t going away any time soon, but instead, they are just experiencing a reduction in the ranks because of the leaner times.
If anyone else out there reading this is able to offer a donation of any kind for the organization, now is a fantastic time to do so. Their donation page can be found here.
