Participate

The Internet is for all of us to shape and make healthier. You've read the stories in this report, and now you’re probably asking, ‘What can I do?’

When you read the stories of this report, there’s a good chance you’ll end up asking the same question most of us do: What can I do?

Maybe you’re concerned about a specific issue – like the spread of misinformation online, the privacy of your family, or you’ve had your Internet access blocked.

Perhaps you’re already actively involved in building a healthier Internet, as an advocate, an educator, a policy maker, a journalist, a researcher, or something else.

Or maybe you just want to better understand the technologies that affect your life and communities, and how you can shape the way you interact with them.

The Internet Health Report is a snapshot of what’s happening to the health of the Internet right now. It’s a collaborative effort, and representative of a broad range of voices across the field. We don’t have all the answers. If anything, we’re asking more questions.

But it’s also a call to action. It’s a challenge to each of us to learn more and to do more – to work together to create a healthy Internet that values people above everything.

In that spirit, here are some thoughts on how to meet that challenge.

Model good practice

Make your personal Internet experience healthier for the sake of the whole ecosystem. You might get started by:

Protect yourself and your devices with strong passwords and two-factor authentication.
Always update your computer and phone software as soon as a security update is available to protect yourself and those around you.
Learn how to identify online abuse, and what your rights are if you or someone you know is harassed online. You can also assist or volunteer with organizations that support victims.
Explore what kinds of data companies like Google and Facebook are collecting about you, and select privacy settings you’re comfortable with. Try a data detox?
Improve your ‘crap detection’ skills and try to verify photos and videos before you share. Educate yourself about economic incentives that drive some misinformation.
Make sure the website you own or administer is accessible only via https (encrypted). You can run a test here. If it’s not, contact your hosting provider.
Help support free and open voice technology by donating your voice recordings to the Common Voice project to teach machines how real people speak.
Identify open source software you use regularly and support them with time, money or thanks. For example, you can edit Wikipedia or MDN Web docs or review code.

Discuss and debate

To make the Internet healthier, we need more people to understand and care – and then take action. We hope the report can help you start conversations with others about how to build a healthier Internet, together.

We invite you to take this report and copy, repurpose, embed, debate, download, share, and write about it… or anything in between! We publish under a Creative Commons-Attribution license (CC BY 4.0) to encourage reuse.

Here are three ways to get started

Discuss stories in this report. Change starts with action, and actions start with reactions. After you read an article, choose an emoji to share how you feel.

Then pop into the comments to see what people are saying, and add your thoughts. Please keep our Community Participation Guidelines in mind!

Share your favorite stories. Pick a story or chart that fascinated you and send it around to your friends, or on social media. Look for the ‘share’ buttons at the bottom of each page.

Host a conversation in your community. We’ve developed lots of materials to help make this easy, including a slide deck and a guide to hosting events.

Roll up your sleeves

It’s not all on you to make a difference. The Internet will only become much healthier through structural changes, thoughtful governance, and better protection of consumers of products and services everywhere. You can keep demanding that these things happen, and engage in efforts to collectively push for change.

Get involved with Mozilla

Learn about Mozilla’s policy initiatives and campaigns
Apply to be a Fellow
Become a Mozilla Open Leader
Join us at Mozfest or the Global Sprint
Explore more opportunities to help keep the internet healthy

Get directly involved

If you’d like to get involved on a specific issue, or are wondering about Internet health in your own area or country, we encourage you to engage with local digital rights groups. Start noticing who is speaking out on these topics in the news and reach out to them.

The people and organizations we featured in this year’s report are good places to start: