Infrastructure that sustains social struggles
May First demonstrates that another technological infrastructure is possible. One that does not mine data, does not sell attention, and does not reproduce a corporate world view. For over 20 years, we have operated technological infrastructure without these practices, proving that the dominant extractive model is not inevitable.
More than 800 organizations entrust their digital infrastructure to a cooperative supported by social movements. This shows that technological autonomy is viable.
We have responded to distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks designed to silence, resisted censorship attempts and kept services running. This shows that digital infrastructure oriented to social movements can be reliable.
Many of the people and organizations that come to May First discover new ways of engaging with technologies. This change transforms more than technical aspects. It transforms how organizations understand their relationship with it.
Strengthening communities of resilience
Our members not only benefit individually. They connect with a network of organizations sharing infrastructure, knowledge and practical solidarity.
We train and support hundreds of activists and organizers in digital security, technological sovereignty and the use of free tools. Our reflections and research on surveillance capitalism, environmental sustainability, data extractivism and technological repression strengthen the strategic knowledge of multiple social movements.
We participate in spaces where internet practices and policies are discussed, bringing a voice that proposes another way of developing and maintaining technologies, and we demonstrate how autonomous and cooperative technologies can respond to broad sectors of the population, challenging the narratives that present technological monopolies as inevitable.
Our cooperative approach inspires other initiatives in different regions. We share knowledge about how we operate, what has worked for us and what has not, so that we can continue to learn and so that other groups can learn from our experiences.
In the long term
May First’s impact is not measured in services we maintain. It focuses on people and organizations being able to sustain their work during crises, on knowledge circulating among social movements, on options other than the imposed extractive model.
Being part of May First, each of our memberships performs a small (big) act of defiance to the current system. Multiplied by hundreds of organizations over two decades, these acts build concrete possibilities of technological autonomy for social movements.