Campaign Timeline
We harness the power of the Internet to channel outrage into action, defending our most basic rights in the digital age.
2011
Free Bieber
Fight for the Future’s first campaign targeted Senate bill 978, which would have made it a felony for anyone to post a video of themselves singing a copyrighted song to YouTube or any other online website. The campaign prompted 200,000 petition signers, 50,000 Facebook likes, coverage in hundreds of news and blog articles, and even gained the attention of Justin Bieber himself. Ultimately, Senate bill 978 died without a vote.
American Censorship Day
Over 6,000 websites — including Wikipedia and Firefox — participated in American Censorship Day to protest the dangerously misguided SOPA and PIPA leglislation. More than two million people signed our online petition, while one million people sent emails and 84,000 made calls to Congress.
2012
The Internet Goes on Strike
In the largest Internet protest to date, more than 115,000 websites joined forces to educate the public about the dangers SOPA and PIPA legislation represented to digital freedom. Over 12 million messages of protest were delivered to Congress, causing the bills to be shelved indefinitely.
Do You Have a Secret?
Congress once again debated another dangerous piece of legislation, this time called CISPA. Our website, DoYouHaveaSecret.org, drove thousands of emails and phone calls to Congress, helping to kill the bill in the U.S. Senate.
2013
CISPA Returns
Our opponents never give up. But neither do freedom fighters. After CISPA was reintroduced to Congress, we collected more than 300,000 signatures from people opposed to the bill and delivered them to our lawmakers in Washington. We also rallied support from Reddit, Mozilla, Imgur, and 30,000 other websites to oppose this historically unpopular legislation. Once again, this bill was shelved.
StopWatching.US
On July 4th, we participated the largest online privacy protest in history… and then we took the protest offline and into the streets. As part of the StopWatching.Us coalition, we helped draw national attention to the NSA's privacy abuses while delivering 575,000 signatures on a pro-privacy petition to Congress.
2014
Occupy the FCC
In May, more than 15 protesters held a week-long vigil outside of the FCC to advocate for the reclassification of broadband Internet under Title II protections.
Battle for the Net
Net neutrality is the basic principle that ensures no one can block our access to websites, throttle our Internet speeds, or impose unfair fees. We need a functional FCC to restore it now.
Internet Slowdown
The worlds' most popular websites participated in the Internet Slowdown day of protests, submitting more than 4 million comments to the FCC in support of net neutrality. And driving tens of thousands of phone calls to Congress.
Reset the Net
We took back our privacy by building a coalition of tech companies and human rights organizations that protect your sensitive information using security measures like SSL and end-to-end encryption.
2015
Net Neutrality Victory at the FCC
On February 26th, the FCC voted to protect net neutrality using Title II classification, effectively ensuring that broadband providers could not slow traffic, block access to websites, or impose unfair fees on American Internet users. Traditional DC logic said this victory was impossible. Our Internet-powered campaigns made it inevitable.
2016
Rock Against the TPP
In collaboration with Tom Morello's Firebrand label, Fight for the Future launched the Rock Against the TPP festival on July 21st. The festival featured a variety of artists including Morello, Anti-Flag, Flobots, Talib Kweli and Jolie Holland playing music to raise awareness and promote opposition to the secretive TPP legislation. Ultimately, the United States withdrew its support for the TPP.
Don't Break Our Phones
When the FBI obtained an unprecedented court order trying to force Apple to crack their own security measures, we sparked hundreds of snap protests outside of Apple stores across the nation. Apple held firm, and eventually the FBI abandoned their legal efforts against the tech giant, a huge victory for privacy and human rights.
Hugs for Chelsea Manning
We launched an online petition asking the Obama administration to commute the sentence of tech whistleblower Chelsea Manning. The hugs poured in as the campaign went viral, and activists such as Tom Morello, Graham Nash, and Michael Stipe collaborated on a benefit album. Ultimately, we collected over 100,000 signatures in support of the jailed whistleblower, whose sentence was commuted. We've continued to support Chelsea as she faces jail time for resisting an unjust Grand Jury.
Hello Vote
Register to vote, get reminders to vote, and encourage your friends to show up to the polls on election day with the HelloVote chat bot.
2017
July 12th
When Ajit Pai's FCC announced plans to eliminate net neutrality, Fight for the Future organized major digital platforms like Tumblr, Reddit, Tinder, Netflix, and more to inform the public of the impending danger. Nearly 3,500,000 emails were sent to Congress and more than 1,600,000 comments were made on the FCC's website in support of net neutrality.
Break the Internet
Ahead of the FCC's vote to eliminate net neutrality, we launched a major protest online, supported by in-person events all over America. Nearly one million emails were sent to Congress, while over 450,000 phone calls were made in favor of strong net neutrality protections. The FCC ignored the overwhelming majority of Americans and repealed net neutrality, but the unprecedented backlash we generated has laid the foundation for its return.
Operation Comcastroturf
Someone submitted over one million anti-net neutrality comments to the FCC using stolen names and addresses. We called for an investigation.
2018
Businesses for Net Neutrality
Small businesses can't survive without the open Internet. Competition and free markets online are essential to small business.
Red Alert for Net Neutrality
When the Senate scheduled a vote to overturn the FCC's disastrous decision to repeal net neutrality, Fight for the Future launched a Red Alert across the entire Internet. In coordination with tech companies such as Etsy, Postmates, and BitTorrent, we sent over 200,000 emails and 80,000 calls to Congress, helping the Senate to pass a CRA to restore net neutrality on May 16th.
#NoTechForICE
US tech companies play a significant role in the human rights abuses carried out by agencies like ICE. As public outcry grew in the wake of the family separation crisis, we launched a number of online and in-person protests targeting tech companies' contracts with ICE and border patrol. Dozens of immigrants rights and racial justice groups have continued to carry that fight forward.
2019
Speakout.Tech
Tech workers have the power to stop unethical uses of technology. Whistleblowing is an act of love for humanity.
Ban Facial Recognition
Facial recognition technology is invasive, biased, and a threat to basic rights and safety. We’re calling for an outright ban on the use of this technology for surveillance purposes.
Ban Facial Recognition at Live Shows
In the summer of 2019, Fight for the Future learned that major event producer and ticketing company LiveNation, which owns TicketMaster, had invested in a facial recognition company with the intention of implementing the technology as a method of event entry. After massive blowback from artists, fans, venues, and events, LiveNation publicly announced that it would cease research on facial recognition at shows.
2020
Make Zoom Safe
VICTORY: We won a campaign to get Zoom to offer end-to-end encryption for all accounts, regardless of payment status.
#CancelRing
Fight for the Future was the first group to expose how Amazon Ring's doorbell camera is being used by more than 1,700 law enforcement departments to access surveillance data without probable cause. Among other tactics, Fight has called on tech review sites to suspend their endorsement of the product in their holiday guide, prompting the New York Time's Wirecutter to reverse its recommendation.
#NoEARNITAct
The EARN IT Act is one of the most dangerous piece of tech legislation ever. If passed, it would end online free speech by gutting Section 230 and bring an end to encryption. Fight for the Future's petition went viral, with over half a million people urging their lawmakers to stop the EARN IT Act.
2021
#DontKillCrypto
A poorly written provision included in the infrastructure bill would effectively crush the cryptocurrency ecosystem, expand surveillance, and endanger human rights. We must push for a fix now.
#NoSpyphone
VICTORY: We organized nationwide protests against Apple's proposed backdoor in iOS 15. The plan is shelved for now.
How to Stop Facebook
The best way to stop Facebook’s harms for the whole world is to cut off the fuel supply for its dangerous machine. It's time to pass a real data privacy law that ends their harmful business model forever.
2022
Amazon Doesn't Rock
VICTORY: After major backlash from artists and music lovers, Red Rocks Amphitheater has ended its use Amazon palm scanning technology.
Dump ID.me
VICTORY: We won at the IRS. Now we must ensure that all government agencies using facial recognition for verification cancel their contracts and reject these tools.
2023
Bad Internet Bills
Congress is trying to push through a swarm of harmful internet bills that would severely impact human rights, expand surveillance, and enable censorship on the internet.
Make DMs Safe
In an increasingly dangerous world, there’s one simple thing every messaging platform must do right now: make our messages safe using end-to-end encryption.
2024
Got Amazon Ring to end police partnerships
For years, we worked with coalition partners to end Amazon's surveillance empire and dismantle Amazon Ring's partnerships with the police. Our pressure campaign paid off in January 2024 when Amazon announced it would shutter its “Request for Assistance” (RFA) tool, the feature that allowed cops to demand doorbell camera footage from users through the Neighbors app. The RFA tool had given “police departments an Easy Button for vacuuming up Ring footage without a warrant.” Eliminating the RFA tool means eliminating a major pipeline for warrantless police access to citizens' Ring cameras–a truly impressive victory.
Battle for the Net
Net neutrality is the basic principle that ensures no one can block our access to websites, throttle our Internet speeds, or impose unfair fees. We need a functional FCC to restore it now.
Don't Ban TikTok
When lawmakers announced their intent to ban TikTok, we launched DontBanTikTok.com to help young people and TikTok creators channel their outrage into action. While we should all be concerned about how apps like TikTok collect and abuse our personal data, US based apps collect the same intimate data about us. To really stop the abuse, we advocate for strong privacy laws and antitrust action.