Heerme – Protect Freedom Of Speech Online And Comment Anywhere

Well, the good people at the NSA have left us little doubt that someone is always listening, but that’s hardly the same thing as being heard. While there are plenty of channels for communication online, direct commentary has a hard time finding it’s way to the surface – close to the source. Heerme.com looks to change the game.

Heerme is a plug-in for your browser (currently available for FireFox and Google Chrome) that let’s you leave comments wherever you want on the Internet. Read an article where there isn’t a space to comment, and now you have one. If a company takes down something that they don’t like hearing, now there’s a way to say it where everyone can see it.

Make Sure Your Voice Is Heard

The Facebook page for Heerme features a quote from George Orwell that goes: “Freedom is the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.” The startup’s tool is one way to protect freedom of speech online. Heerme allows web users to speak freely, independently of the sites that are the topic of discussion. While it’s easy to post thoughts and opinions on your personal social media sites, there’s little recourse if a web owner decides to take down something they don’t care for on a proprietary site.

With Heerme, after a simple installation of the plug-in, you click on the icon (a bit like Pac-Man with an exclamation mark coming out of his mouth) and have a text box to write your thoughts. Others can do the same, conversations can take place, all without traveling away from the subject. Heerme works the same way regardless if it’s a website, product, or piece of content that you care to comment on.

A beta version of the plug-in is ready for download. To continue spreading the word and improve their tool, the defenders of free speech behind Heerme have taken their cause to this Kickstarter crowdfunding drive. They’re looking to raise $5,000 by September 18th.

Once the team generates enough users and commentary through Heerme, they’d like to work on building a ratings algorithm to push the highest quality comments to the top as well as introduce other social features.

Technology fans, now startup founders, Heerme is led by Jennifer and Michał Galas and Jakub Widerak. They bring a healthy variety of background experience into the mix including communications, entrepreneurship, app developing, finance and even pharmacy. They share the intention to “bring something that matters to the Internet community.”

Jennifer Galas decided to work on Heerme after catching herself not not speaking up about a product when she was sure the company would remove her negative feedback. She figured she wasn’t the only one and realized that everyone online would benefit from a tool that allowed users to leave comments external to websites but still connected to the address.

Don’t like the policies of the NSA? Pay ‘em a visit (here), and let them hear what you think using Heerme. Save ‘em the trouble of snooping around.

Photo Credits

Heerme | amnestystudent