Netgain Challenge

The greatest challenge changemakers face on the Internet might be the same one they’ve got offline: organizing. We’ve just scratched the surface of the Internet’s potential to bring people together around the most pressing social and political issues – including the future of the Internet itself. But powerful government and corporate forces across the globe want to monitor, censor and control what we do online. Some may be able to hack around these problems, but the vast majority of Internet users will only be protected by better policies and the political will needed to implement them. That makes this not just a technical but a political fight. And the only way positive reform will happen is through mobilizing the public and proving to our leaders that the Internet is a bread-and-butter issue that requires broad input. And that means organizing – in new ways, sure, but some old-fashioned ones, too. If we can get the people who tweet into the streets (and vice versa), transformative change can happen.