Press Release
October 15, 2025
Mozilla Foundation Launches New Editorial Brand “Nothing Personal,” a counterculture magazine and platform for independent thinkers
- Nothing Personal is Mozilla Foundation’s new counterculture editorial brand, disrupting dominant technology narratives and speaking to Gen Z and Millennial audiences.
- Led by former Atlantic, WSJ, and Freakonomics journalist Bourree Lam, with support from The Onion.
- Relaunching privacy-focused product reviews, continuing Mozilla’s legacy of challenging defaults.
- A strong commitment to non-profit funding of journalism—a bold statement in an age of struggling subscription models, ad schemes, and AI slop.
- Read Issue One here.
NEW YORK, OCTOBER 15, 2025 – Today, Mozilla Foundation is launching Nothing Personal, a new global tech-culture magazine and editorial brand. In a fragmented media landscape facing urgent questions around privacy and artificial intelligence, Nothing Personal will serve as a human-driven and human-written hub of thought and culture for independent thinkers. Every month, Nothing Personal will elevate artists, creators, writers, and thinkers, turning our biggest concerns with technology into culturally fluent and provocative impact stories. Together, they will imagine and build alternative Internet culture, online communities, and digital spaces.
"The Internet's next chapter won't be handed down by platforms. It will be built—again—by people with a creative spark," said Nabiha Syed, Executive Director of the Mozilla Foundation. "As a long-time builder of alternative technologies, Mozilla Foundation will now experiment with alternative storytelling—the kind of counterculture narratives that challenge convention and expand what's possible online.”
Nothing Personal has three core storytelling formats:
- Hero Feature: An ambitious monthly commission of longform journalism with media-rich experiences
- Advice Column: With humor editing from The Onion, a technology expert will satirize the tech hype we see all around us.
- Product Review: Expert translation of the tech in our daily lives and its impact on our privacy
Activating the Internet’s Curious and Independent Roots
Since 1998, Mozilla has championed alternative technology—first by building on the open-source Netscape browser code, and later, in 2003, by launching Firefox under the newly founded Mozilla Foundation. Firefox became a hallmark of counterculture tech, prioritizing privacy over profit. Since 2015, the Foundation has awarded more than $33 million to people and projects at the intersection of technology, society, and creativity across 78 countries, supporting over 200 fellows worldwide.
Nothing Personal will allow Mozilla Foundation’s mission and commitment to reach younger audiences, many of whom are driving some of the most important conversations about our interconnected world from online safety and the influencer economy to AI chatbot addiction and “fried” attention spans.
“With Nothing Personal, we’re amplifying our values with direct, irresistible storytelling,” said Dayo Lamolo, Vice President of Strategic Communications at the Mozilla Foundation. “Each month, we’ll tell big stories about how technology has transformed global society, and give our audience a space to imagine alternatives. Through narrative, spectacle, and practical advice, we want to re-activate the joy of the ‘old Internet’ for those who remember it, and for a new generation seeking it for the first time.”
Tapping Mozilla’s Creator Ecosystem to Tell Stories
Nothing Personal’s debut issue, available now, sets the tone for the publication’s commitment to digital activists, builders, and dreamers who imagine alternative tech futures. Digital culture expert and co—matter founder Severin Matusek charts community-led “islands” of digital infrastructure—spaces where people are building creative, self-governed alternatives to big platforms. In the satire column “Superficial Intelligences”, Mozilla Foundation Senior Fellow Louis Barclay pokes fun at the abundance of tech solutions that aren’t always fit for purpose.
“As publications and companies consider replacing human thinkers, writers, and artists with AI slop, we are leaning head first into human-made journalism,” said Bourree Lam, Executive Editor of Nothing Personal by the Mozilla Foundation. “Nothing Personal is not social-first, nor is it reliant on ad revenue or subscriptions. It’s a counterculture magazine meant to empower those at the margins of conversations around technology and culture.”
Helping Consumers Take Back their Privacy from Tech Companies
There’s still hope for an Internet that serves people rather than billionaires. Through a product review section (independent of tech companies, advertisers, or affiliate marketing), Nothing Personal will carry out objective, consumer-facing, privacy reviews of the tech we use in our everyday lives.
The October review section takes a privacy-focused microscope to our usual group chat hosts: WhatsApp, iMessage, and Signal.
Issue One of Nothing Personal is live now. Future issues will also be available at https://www.mozillafoundation.org/nothing-personal/
Inquiries to our Advice Columnist can be submitted to superficialintelligence@mozillafoundation.org.
