Glitter everywhere, colourful redefined, loud music streaming from creatively decorated transporters. Berlin vibrates when Christopher Street Day transforms the city. CSD in Berlin is one of the largest events of its kind in Europe. Thousands of people celebrate the freedom to be whoever they are on this special day in July. The right to love love, no matter what it looks like. To understand different perspectives as a breeding ground for progress, even if it can sometimes be difficult and uncomfortable. To make oneself and others aware of how valuable we all are. To join hands in solidarity to build a better future together. Offline as well as online. Obviously, a highlight Mozilla — the not-for-profit that is committed to a healthy, diverse Internet, and which also has a home in Berlin — can’t miss.
Christopher Street Day reminds the world of the 1968 uprising in New York’s Greenwich Village long before the age of the Internet, long before this new, non-physical level was added to our lives — a digital space to express our personality, share our thoughts and exchange views with others. This space — also known as the web — is like a mirror and amplifier of the physical world. Not only an additional space for everything positive, but unfortunately also for the negative. The online sphere makes it sometimes even easier to exclude, insult, harass others — without really having to identify as someone who excludes, insults, harasses. It is therefore all the more important that we also stand up for each other in this area of our lives. Almost 60 Mozillians in the Berlin office work everyday to make sure the Internet can be a diverse and welcoming place for everybody — an important goal to work for, which we also highlighted by adding four new principles to the Mozilla Manifesto for our 20th anniversary this year. The importance of that was just emphasized on this year for Mozilla’s 20th anniversary.