Sometimes the EFF Prefers to Talk About Sex, Not Tech (or Unnecessarily Conflate the Two Things)
WHY does the EFF want to side with the same company and person* that's boosting Donald Trump (look under the "Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda" section of today's Daily Links and yesterday's Daily Links)? Or more importantly, why is the EFF helping a mass surveillance company?
The short story is, follow the money. The EFF is lobbying for Facebook, which allegedly pays the EFF to do this.
The EFF is nowadays somewhat of a GAFAM think tank, giving awards to Microsoft, taking bribes from Google, and so on.
Think of the Linux Foundation if it helps. Its most dominant voice is that of the biggest attacker on Linux.
The old name (or brand) remains; the goals? Not so much...
One worrying thing about the EFF is, it is conflating all sorts of digital rights with prostitution (or "sex work" as the EFF prefers to refer to prostitution as, broadening the criterion with vagueness). So instead of talking about policy we end up talking about something else altogether. It should be noted the person whom we're suing [1, 2] for well over a decade of online abuse relied on similar tactics, centred around sexualisation of things. He was also participating in the 'coup' inside the EFF, replacing geeks with more and more oddballs who barely care about tech and who strongly oppose free speech (especially criticism).
If the EFF wants to deal with freedom of speech online, maybe it should issue a press release about the murder of cartoonists in France almost exactly a decade ago. But that would seem like criticism of Islam (which generally objects to free speech) and the EFF would not want to do that...
So let's talk about sex, baby.
Take this new example from the EFF:
This has mentioned "LGBTQ+" several times, even "sex work". They're basically conflating online speech with something a lot more divisive.
So "EFF Statement on Meta's Announcement of Revisions to Its Content Moderation Processes" now deals with something totally different from the core issues. And "instead of addressing the policy aspects and principles," as an associate put it, "the EFF reframes the whole question into a fringe topic... well played."
They're scoring an own goal and alienating all sorts of people, not just hardcore Republicans who say "EFF says: Don't stop kids from looking at porn!"
If the EFF is supporting prostitution, promiscuity, and all sorts of fringe ideas that vex and irritate a lot of the general population and have little (or nothing) to do with privacy, free speech, patent law etc. then the EFF isn't a decent flag bearer. It helps companies like Facebook distract from the most sinister aspects of these policies. █
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* A foul-mouthed Zuckerberg, an enabler of Donald Trump who lets a Trump confidant manage the policy. Those companies participate in oppression, they do not resist it.