NoNotReallyXee

The internet is a bit like space in the sense that no one country owns it or can make laws to prevent the repression of internet freedoms. So laws are not exactly the best at regulating surveillance. The existing laws have not stopped governments and corporations from selling surveillance technology to repressive regimes who target human rights defenders. Hacking Team and/or NSO quickly come to mind. What we can do is fund tools that allow people to circumvent censorship, and that is what OTF has done over the years.

People who should fund to keep the internet open is everybody who benefits; from countries around the world to big corporations. We need to diversify funding forInternet Freedom and if all the beneficiaries who are able to, make a sustained and proportionate contribution, not only it will fill in the gap, but also can significantly expand the work and the global impact of this community. Internet freedom is something that benefits everyone, it is unwise that we are so heavily reliant on the US government. 

The end result would be super sever. Especially for the at risk communities in sub saharan Africa that I work with. Some of the groups are so small that they would not meet the various requirements for grants by other organisations. The pretty upfront and transparent model by OTF means anyone with a good idea, even exeremental learning ideas can and have been funded. So the last few weeks at OTF have been a huge concern for us.

Open internet is not supposed to be political. The OTF is not political and has has bipartisan support from inception and continues to do so till date. As a non American who doesn't have a dog in this fight, I couldn't care less about partisan issues.Instead, what I care about is free and open source technology that can be designed, used, copied, expanded, audited and improved on by a not just today's technologists, but for generations to come. And finally, we would be having this AMA and running the campaign to save open internet regardless of if the actions of the last 4 weeks took place in 2019 or 2021

Yeah unfortunately this is true, at least for the organisations in sub saharan Africa that I work with. OTF funding allows trainers like myself to provide longterm sustained support to LGBT groups, networks and organisations. LGBTQI+ groups in the past have had to rely on the 'champion model' where one person was supposed to 'learn security' in a week and then somehow pass it on to colleagues, but with OTF's funding model, we've had trainers embed in organisations for months to build capacity of everyone. Also if the FOSS tools funded by OTF don't exist, our groups and networks would be at risk, and if the tools exist and we can't/don't know how use them, we are still at risk...