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.
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.
Dec 9, 2017: Thanks to all 2017 Membership Meeting participants - online, Brooklyn and Mexico! See below for the results of the meeting. Friday, December 1, 2017: Pre-meeting Training and Presentation Day Unedited full recording is available in spanish. For english, click links below. Introductions, Orientation, documents, history of MF/PL (listen) Email deliverability: Challenges with corporate take over of email (listen) Peer to peer technology: launch of organizing campaign in 2018 (listen) Technology and Revolution: What we have learned from the previous year (listen) Saturday, December 2, 2017: Membership Meeting Please see the report on last year priorities.
Nov 9, 2017: Thanks to everyone who filled out our membership survey! For anyone who wants to see the raw results, please follow this link. Following is a brief summary on the results. What are the three most critical software or software services that you use on a regular basis for your organizing work? Email (24%) and web sites (16%) dominated the results, with collaborative editing software (10%), instant messaging (9%), video conferencing (9%) and social networks (9%) coming in next.
Oct 30, 2017: Please join May First/People Link, the Progressive Technology Project and ThoughtWorks at the Thoughtworks Manhattan office on Monday, November 13 from 6 to 9:00 pm for a Progressive Tech Salon (99 Madison Ave, 15th Floor, New York). Tools have an important role in our movement - and our role as techies in figuring out the design and training components is critical. However, we also need to think as organizers, and begin addressing the bigger role technology plays in shaping both society and our movements.
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.