May First/People Link engages in building movements by advancing the strategic use and collective control of technology for local struggles, global transformation, and emancipation without borders. Flowing from that mission, our organization redefines the concept of “Internet Service Provider” in a collective and collaborative way. Like any democratic membership organization, we gather together each year to evaluate the past year’s experiences, plan the coming year’s work and elect a Leadership Committee to apply what we’ve decided. Like a coop, we pay dues, buy equipment and then we all use that equipment as we need to for websites, email, email lists, and just about everything else we do on the Internet. As a movement organization, we participate in (and often lead) campaigns, struggles, coalitions and network of left, progressive and social justice organizations in the U.S., Mexico and Internationally. Learn more about our organization by reading our official documents.
May First/People Link is a member of the Media Action Grassroots Network, the Association for Progressive Communications, the US Social Forum and actively participates in the Left Forum, the Allied Media Conference, the Mexican and International Coop movements, and other movement coalitions and gatherings. We are committed to building movements for global transformation and emancipation.
May First/People Link is binational, based in the US and Mexico. Our member-elected Leadership Committee is drawn from both countries to allow us to build a strategic vision with an international perspective that matches the potential of movement as we continue to develop communication opportunities that cross borders.
Over 800 May First/People Link members pay dues to support our work. One important benefit of membership is access to our first class web, email and other hosting services, based entirely on free and open source software, hardened to defend against denial of service attacks, and with a track record of fighting corporate and government requests for data.
Apr 6, 2018: You’ve heard and read about the scandal surrounding Facebook. The personal information of 50 million Facebook users was captured or transferred, legally and transparently, by a right-wing consulting firm called Cambridge Analytics. Outrageous but nothing new. Not only does Facebook allow the farming of its data but that’s how it makes its money. And most of our movement submits its data to Facebook for precisely that purpose. How dangerous is this?
Feb 24, 2018: Over 20 activists and organizations who work with technology have issued a ground-breaking statement about how our movements and our techies relate and how that needs to change. Learn more about it at our free webinar, Thursday, March 22, at 3:30 pm Eastern time. Please join the webinar. https://participate.mayfirst.org/ Join Technologist/activist Idalin Bobé, Progressive Technology Project’s Alice Aguilar and May First/People Link’s Alfredo Lopez If you can’t make the webinar, please read and sign the statement:
Feb 8, 2018: Alice Aguilar from the Progressive Technology Project facilitated a conversation with Center for Media Justice’s Steven Renderos, Free Press’s Jessica Gonzalez and May First Leadership Committee Member and Highlander Eductation Team Admin Samir Hazboun on Thursday, February 22, 2018. Listen to the english or spanish recordings. We’ll be talking about preserving our Internet and expanding its access against the Trump Adminstration which is attacking its neutrality, expanding surveillance, and staunchly denying affordable and simple access to millions of people in this country.
Jan 5, 2018: Want to learn more? Please listen to our webinar in english or spanish which took place Thursday, January 25 at 3:00 pm America/New_York time. As you may be aware, two significant technical vulnerabilities have been discovered and were publicly announced recently. They are called Meltdown and Spectre. Unlike most technical vulnerabilities, which are caused by poorly written software, Meltdown and Spectre are caused by the way computer chips work. In other words, they aren’t code mistakes; they reside in the actual brain of the computer.
Jan 5, 2018: As you may be aware, two significant technical vulnerabilities have been discovered and were publicly announced yesterday. They are called Meltdown and Spectre. Unlike most technical vulnerabilities, which are caused by poorly written software, Meltdown and Spectre are caused by the way computer chips work. In other words, they aren’t code mistakes; they reside in the actual brain of the computer. So they are very widespread and much harder to fix.
May First/People Link offers two different webmail programs. You will always see the same email regarless of which program you use. Roundcube has a friendly and simple iterface, making it the easier of the two programs to use. Horde, on the other hand, offers more than just email - you can share calendars, to do lists and more with other members of your group. Feel free to try both and decide which one makes sense for you.