Hello
Z.,
Guess
what? We make mistakes. We’re
human!
This
year we at Mozilla set out to take
on more new initiatives, reach for
deeper impact, and go bigger than
ever before. A lot of it went well
– but we've also had our fair
share of fails, goofs, oopsies,
and dadgummits in 2023. And so we
thought, why not share with our
supporters about times where we
tried things that didn't work out,
or that went differently than
expected, or where we simply
screwed up?
We
thought you might appreciate
transparency and honesty about our
work, even when it's not all
sunshine and roses. And yes, at
the end of this email, we're going
to ask if you can add
a donation to Mozilla's end of
year fundraising drive
– while we won't promise
perfection, we will promise
transparency.
So,
here’s a highlight of our
lowlights and what we learned in
2023:
Mistake
#1: Facebook Ads and Privacy Don't
Mix
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We
wanted to get more
people to sign one
of our petitions
as part of a
campaign to get
TikTok to be more
transparent about
how it shares user
data. Our
marketing team
decided to try
their hand at
running ads on
Facebook to reach
people who might
not be in the
Mozilla universe
yet.
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What
went wrong: Mozilla's
commitment to user privacy is
incompatible with the data
sacrifices required by Meta. Turns
out, if you don’t use Meta’s
privacy-intrusive conversion pixel
on your website – and you also
refuse to give Meta any of your
data – there's little chance of
driving actions with their
advertising.
Lesson
learned: It is
impossible to build a movement to
hold tech companies accountable
while relying on the tools they
want you to use. We'll stick to
places that better represent our
values – because that's also where
we'll find people who are most
committed to our movement.
Mistake
#2: Storms Bring Us Together, But
Make Your Backup Plans
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Mozilla
Festival – better
known as MozFest –
is our global
gathering of
artists,
activists,
researchers,
policymakers, and
technologists.
This year's
MozFest event in
Nairobi, Kenya
focused on issues
around a healthy
internet and
trustworthy AI in
Eastern and
Southern Africa.
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What
went wrong: MozFest got
hammered by some truly terrible
weather – a hail storm so bad and
so loud it shut down a featured
panel conversation; winds too high
to walk between buildings; and a
tent even blew over! People
gathered together out of necessity
and shared their own awful weather
stories. The next day, the
sunlight revealed a group of
people who had literally weathered
the storm together and built
stronger bonds because of it.
Lesson
learned: Sometimes the
worst storms bring us closer
together. But also, always have
backup plans for how to hold your
event.
Mistake
#3: Worldwide Media Attention
Affects Our Website
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When
we published our
*Privacy Not
Included Cars
& Privacy
buyer’s guide in
September, we knew
it would cause a
stir. But we
didn't dream of
the global news
coverage we
actually got: Der
Spiegel, Le
Monde,
Washington Post,
El Pais, The
Guardian, Times
of India, Wired,
and even Fox
News – all
in one day.
(In retrospect,
cars wanting to
know about your
sex life and
genetic
information was a
huge story.)
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What
went wrong: The part
of our website with the buyer's
guide completely crashed. Like,
BOOM, down it went, thanks to an
unexpected overwhelming amount of
news coverage and traffic. There
are some technical reasons why it
went down, but the short version
is we hadn't retooled that part of
the website to be more efficient
when a lot of people wanted to
look at products.
Lesson
learned: We simply
weren’t prepared for the response
we got, but it wasn't a simple fix
either. We're now focusing on
bigger, structural optimizations
in our website to make sure
nothing like that happens again.
As annoying as it was when so many
people wanted to learn more about
cars and privacy, having too much
interest in our work is also a
good problem to have.
We're
Building a Movement to Reclaim the
Internet
The
good news is that we try to learn
from all our mistakes, adjust our
plans, and move forward on a
better path. We get to fail and
learn from mistakes because of the
support of supporters like you.
Being able to fail and learn as
opposed to fail and quit is what
makes Mozilla so strong. Your
donation is the key to that. (Of
course, we also have a lot of wins
this year – you'll hear more about
them soon.)
And
with that, I will end with one
final ask for you.
Will
you donate $25 to Mozilla and
help build our movement to
reclaim the internet?
I
hope that you have time here at
the end of 2023 to reflect back on
some of your biggest and best
mistakes of the year. And then
take a moment to reflect on what
you learned, how you grew, and how
you are stronger now thanks to
those mistakes. Be kind to
yourself when you make a mistake –
it often holds the answer to a
question you might never have
known you had.
Thank
you for laughing, learning, and
sometimes failing along with us in
2023 – and for all you do for the
internet.
Ashley
Boyd
Senior Vice President,
Global Advocacy
Mozilla
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