Bonum Certa Men Certa

The Peril of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) Illuminates the Dangers of Founders Leaving or Being Forced Out

posted by Roy Schestowitz on Sep 10, 2024,
updated Sep 10, 2024

John Gilmore, John Perry Barlow and Mitch Kapor, founders of the Electronic Frontier Foundation

SOME TIME next year we'll have some stories about the EFF.

The founders of the EFF are no longer involved or very barely involved (one died and another joined the Board of the FSF [1, 2]), so it's hardly surprising that the mission changed. We've seen the same in "FSFE" and "OSI"; the "Linux" (not!) Foundation deteriorates all the time. They optimise for money at their mission's expense. This means they're willing to sell out to corporations and radicals that fervently work against their mission.

Generally speaking, there's a good reason to be suspicious of organisations whose founders are no longer involved. Here in the UK, there's this thing called O.R.G. - an organisation originally meant to emulate the EFF but is nowadays run by immigration lawyers and people who advocate mass immigration, even encouraging undocumented immigration. It's basically following the footsteps of SPLC, Greta (XR), and Green Party UK. Whatever you may think they stand for, you risk being fixated on what they originally were and perhaps what their Web sites still say but not what they now stand for.

"Apropos the upcoming EFF article," an associate has said, "Notice the outreach efforts, which have now dried up."

"The Woz helped found it," the added, and "Wikimedia Foundation trustees vote closes next week and the preliminary results will be Oct 9, a long way out from now."

Image licence: JD Lasica from Pleasanton, CA, US, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

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