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Mozilla launches 'The Web We Want'—an open letter video featuring kids seeking a safer World Wide Web

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As we enter an era of the digital age, the internet helps us in work related to everything from education and travel to healthcare and surveillance. With so much of online human existence at stake and numerous threats to online security and safety, experts and crusaders have been fighting for 'internet security and cyber safety'. 

According to Wikipedia, Internet safety, or online safety, is the knowledge of maximising the user's personal safety and security risks on private information and property associated with using the internet, and the self-protection from computer crime in general.

Concerns regarding the safety of the internet have been discussed and debated upon time and again. NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden and Wikileaks founder Julian Assange have been using the power of web to bring about changes to reveal flaws in governmental policy and its snooping activities on citizens across the globe. Hence, it becomes pertinent for the public to understand the various threats associated with the web and also know how their independence on the web is being curtailed. 

Now, a new international initiative started on April 28 2014 called, 'The Web We Want' is has 4,008 people campaigning to change the way we use web and its future. You can log on to webwewant.org and help the cause by signing up. Here, people can vote for parameters that they believe will shape the future of the web. 

Rooted in the vision of the UN Declaration of Human Rights and the goals of social justice, the campaign was started by Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web, on December 10, 2014, UN Human Rights Day, in Geneva. The initiative has rated different continents on parameters such as freedom, learning, privacy, opportunity, accessibility and user control. These are the criteria that internet users would require for a safe and secure web experience.

The internet giant Mozilla which follows an open-source model has also graded countries on the basis of 'internet freedom' and India has a staggering low 12%. Only, 1% ahead of its neighbour Pakistan.  

*Opportunity grading across the globe (above map)

*Privacy grading across the globe

*Freedom grading across the globe

Here's what Sir Tim Berners-Lee has to say:

The Web We Want campaign is responding to the threats to the future of the web with a practical and positive vision—unleashing the power of people from around the world to defend, claim and change a web that is for everyone. We aim to bring about real change at a national and global level.

You could help us make a difference.

Below are some insightful facts that Firefox has enlisted on its homepage

*Firefox is made by a global volunteer community 6,000 strong, open to participation from anyone. 

*Firefox is made under the principle that security and privacy are fundamental and must not be treated as optional. 

*Firefox protested and lobbied against SOPA and PIPA, dangerous copyright legislation that threatened the freedom of the Web. 

*Firefox teaches digital literacy to millions of people around the world to give them the tools and skills they need to move from using the web to actively making it. 

*Firefox disrupted the mobile industry with the first free, open-source, web-based operating system to help bring the next billion people online. 

Watch these kids make an impactful request: 

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