Welcome to The Web This Week. This edition features a special note from our co-founders, Tim Berners-Lee and Rosemary Leith.

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Thanks for reading!

Usually at this time of year we publish a letter to mark the anniversary of the web’s invention, reflecting on its role in our world and the tech challenges and opportunities we face. But these are not normal times. Alongside the rest of the world, we have been watching Russia’s invasion of Ukraine with despair as a humanitarian and political crisis unfolds.

This is where our attention is focused just now, and we expect you too are thinking about those facing extreme hardship in Ukraine and others across the world affected by conflict. For this reason, we have decided to postpone this year’s birthday letter and instead make a donation to support independent journalism in Ukraine. Reliable, accurate information will be especially critical during this war and it’s vital that rigorous, independent journalists are supported to do their work.

We’re also donating to the following causes, and, if you’re able, we would encourage you to support in any way you can:

Make a donation

Ukrainian Red Cross | Providing emergency aid to all those in need

Urgent Action Fund for Women’s Human Rights | Supporting women and LGBTQI+ people in and around Ukraine

Voices of Children | Helping children in Ukraine affected by conflict

Other ways to help

@RazomForUkraine has created a list of actions you can take to help, from contacting elected officials and attending events, to volunteering your skills.

Support Ukraine Now has curated country-specific ways to help for 32 countries.

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Two years ago, as the Covid-19 virus was spreading throughout the world, we wrote that the web is a lifeline in times of crisis. The same is true now as Ukraine comes under attack. The web has helped to inspire resistance and assist fact-checkers to debunk war propaganda, to help people navigate to safety and find places to stay, to keep families and friends connected, and to enable others across the region and beyond to stand in solidarity and provide support. These scenes are yet another reminder of why we must nurture and protect a safe, empowering web for everyone.

Share stories of the web in Ukraine

The Web Foundation is documenting and celebrating ways the web is being used to help during this crisis. If you’ve seen the web being used for good in Ukraine, add them to our Twitter thread or reply to this email and we will share.

Thanks as ever, for your support for a free and open web.

Tim and Rosemary

Tim Berners-Lee and Rosemary Leith
Web Foundation Co-Founders

HBO faces lawsuit over privacy - The suit, filed on behalf of two subscribers, alleges that the platform shares subscribers’ viewing history with Facebook, which allows the latter to match customers’ viewing habits with their Facebook profiles ➤ Variety

Poor surveillance - A Guardian investigation reveals the reality of operations at BI Inc, a US government-contracted immigrant surveillance company ➤ The Guardian 

Monitoring government algorithms - A new report offers recommendations to ensure that the public is involved in weighty decisions around public algorithms and to guard against harms from algorithms ➤ The Hill

The gender gap in mobile internet use in South Asia as of 2020. This is a significant decrease from 2017, where the gender gap was 67% ➤ GSMA

Diversity on the internet - The world’s first ever State of the Internet’s Languages report maps some of the ways languages are represented online, to establish how many of the 7000+ languages in the world we can fully experience online ➤ Whose Knowledge? 

Celebrating the Women’s Rights Online Network - For International Women’s Day, Web Foundation Gender Engagement and Policy Officer Dianne Olivan highlighted the success stories of 10 organisations from the network ➤ Web Foundation 

Gender gap in mobile internet use - Ahead of the release of their Mobile Gender Gap Report, GSMA shared a preview of some of their updated mobile gender gap numbers ➤ GSMA 

Freedom of expression or a vector for online abuse? - This piece explores how misogynist groups circulate harmful and hateful content under the guise of free speech ➤ Feminism in India 

Google’s Jigsaw launches the Harassment Manager - The tool is intended to allow users to document and manage abuse targeted at them on social media, starting with Twitter, a partner on the project  ➤ Medium

The Alliance for Affordable Internet’s Meaningful Connectivity report was covered by SciDev and Punch Nigeria.

The Web Foundation’s Costs of Exclusion data was cited in an article by The Manila Times on increasing women's participation in the digital economy.