Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF)

EFF Special Advisor Cory Doctorow joined data scientist Shingai Manjengwa for a Q&A about the perils of AI – and how to avoid them - published by Be Giant. Excerpt: Manjengwa: “So what you’re saying is, you started off with quite a positive view of how the internet could be helpful, but over time that shifted. I really want to get to the heart of how you came to be more critical.” Doctorow: “I would say that no one gets involved in something like the Electronic Frontier Foundation or becomes a cyberpunk writer because they think everything’s going to be fine. “If there's a thread running through all the work I do these days, it's what you might call object permanence. There's a point where an infant is no longer entertained by peekaboo, and that point is the moment in which they acquire something called object permanence, remembering that stuff happened and inferring a causal relationship to the stuff that happened afterward. I think that, as a society, we have such bad object permanence. We don’t remember that the things that made the internet terrible weren't the great forces of history. They weren't the iron laws of economics. We didn't get hit by an internet-killing meteor. It was specific people who made decisions that had the foreseeable and foreseen outcome of making the internet terrible. “If you can remember that and keep these monsters’ hands off the levers of power, and you can remember what policies they enacted and make new ones that are better, then we can have technology that realizes its liberatory potential and guards against its use as a source of oppression.” Read the whole interview at the link in the comments.

🚨THE KIDS ACT IS AN INTERNET SURVEILLANCE BILL🚨 Congress is rushing the KIDS Act toward a vote. This blend of KOSA, the SCREEN Act, SAFE Bots, and other bills is a single package that is a threat to privacy and free expression for ALL internet users. Buried inside the KIDS Act are provisions that will 🪪Push online services to verify users’ ages 🏛️Require government-directed moderation policies for online speech 🔐Create new rules about private and encrypted communications. Supporters claim this bill protects minors online, but this “protection” comes at the expense of privacy, free expression, and the ability of people of ALL ages to use the internet without revealing sensitive data. The consequences of the KIDS Act will not be limited to minors. If websites and apps are expected to reliably identify teenagers and restrict what they can discuss, adults will increasingly be asked to prove they are adults. The result of the KIDS Act will be a less private and censored internet for everyone. Take action NOW below ⬇️

EFF’s David Greene wrote for Tech Policy Press: “When I first began working on free speech issues full time in 1997, I worked on lots of challenges to freedom of speech based on feared harms to children. At the time, the perceived threats to young people were supposedly Satanic lyrics in heavy metal and violence on television. In conversations with fellow advocates on both sides of the issues, I was frequently admonished ‘Just wait until you have kids of your own. You’ll feel different then.’ “I found this warning odd at the time. I was young enough to remember what it felt like to be on the other side of that generational divide. My response was usually a non-committal, ‘Maybe. I guess we’ll see.’ “I did become a father a few years later. In fact, this year marks the 25th anniversary of that milestone. But becoming a parent didn't make me want the government to restrict the world for my children; it made me realize how vital it was that they be allowed to inhabit it freely. Rather than make me doubt whether young people had free speech rights worth protecting, it made me feel even more strongly that they did.” Link to the whole op-ed in the comments.

We need you to act now to protect online anonymity, privacy, and the right of young people to participate in online public life in California. Send a note to your Senator urging them to vote NO on A.B.1709: https://lnkd.in/g5wdAY-S

EFF and our allies are fighting back against proposal to replace neutral internet standards that encourage openness into restrictive requirements designed to monetize internet access. Help protect the rules that keep the web free and open. https://lnkd.in/e5HkRXFj

Public access to court records shouldn't depend on your ability to pay. https://lnkd.in/gaZ3Jc7S

EFF Award nominations close today, June 24th at 2:00 PM Pacific Time. Let us know who deserves this years honors. https://lnkd.in/guY4m22W

El reciente nombramiento de Pulte subraya más que nunca la urgencia de reformar la Sección 702. No podemos permitir que el espionaje y la vigilancia masiva sin orden judicial sigan operando en la sombra. Conoce lo que está en juego para tus derechos: https://lnkd.in/gDrxj-er

Bill C-22 is a massive change from the status quo in Canada, and should be debated and fixed before moving it forward. https://lnkd.in/gweWHyJC

“The wake of a data breach would be a good time for Madison Square Garden to stop subjecting its patrons to biometric surveillance,” EFF’s Adam Schwartz told 404 Media. https://lnkd.in/e4gccJs4