Fwd: We went big in 2023. Here's some of what didn't work: - Wikimedia-l

17 Dec 2023

Very interesting direction in communication to wider audience by
acknowledging mistakes and failures.

I hope for others in the field will follow and extend towards more
authentic communication and we see less PR tricks.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: *Mozilla* &lt;mozilla(a)eml.mozilla.org&gt;
Date: Friday, December 15, 2023
Subject: We went big in 2023. Here's some of what didn't work:
To: &quot;zblace(a)mi2.hr&quot; &lt;zblace(a)mi2.hr&gt;

Where we failed in 2023‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌
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͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌
 ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌
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͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌
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  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*
<https://mozillafoundation.cmail20.com/t/y-l-xjhyktk-ddhtvjjdu-h/> – 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
[image: Facebook in a mixing bowl]

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.

*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
[image: People watching a storm]

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.

*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
[image: Car driving off clift]

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.)

*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?*
<https://mozillafoundation.cmail20.com/t/y-l-xjhyktk-ddhtvjjdu-x/>
* Donate to Mozilla → *
<https://mozillafoundation.cmail20.com/t/y-l-xjhyktk-ddhtvjjdu-m/>

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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