Mastodawn

Aral Balkan Jan 19, 2019

The #EFF: “we are the leading nonprofit defending digital privacy”

Also #EFF: “we’ve partnered with the world’s largest #SurveillanceCapitalist who makes billions by violating your privacy to train the people who will make the policies that defend your privacy – come be a Google Policy Fellow!”

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/01/work-eff-summer-apply-be-2019-google-public-policy-fellow

This is institutional corruption at its worst.

Is anyone else sick of this bullshit?

Via @schestowitz

Work with EFF this Summer! Apply to be a 2019 Google Public Policy Fellow

Are you passionate about emerging Internet and technology policy issues? Come work with EFF this summer as a Google Public Policy Fellow! This 10-week fellowship gives undergraduate and graduate students a paid opportunity to work alongside EFF’s International team on projects advancing debate on...

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alcinnz Jan 19, 2019

@aral I have to disagree with you.

All this is is that the EFF will work with big tech companies when their interests align, and against them when they diverge. Seems only prudent to me.

And unlike what Hollywood lobbyists would suggest, the EFF works against *big* tech at *least* as often as they work with them.

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Aral Balkan Jan 19, 2019

@alcinnz Policy. Fellows.

It doesn’t get worse than this.

POLICY. Fellows.

#InstitutionalCorruption

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alcinnz Jan 19, 2019

@aral That's only on *some* policies.

I'm saying the EFF is nuanced in picking their allies. The world isn't black and white between friend and foe.

They don't disclaim this in any given campaign, that would just hurt their causes. But when you look accross them all their work it's certainly there.

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Aral Balkan Jan 19, 2019

@alcinnz Do you see Greenpeace recruiting Exxon Mobil Policy Fellows? The American Lung Association recruiting Philip Morris Policy Fellows.

Yes, when it comes to human rights, there are those who violate it and those who protect it. Yes, there are friends and foes. Our inability to distinguish between the two is what allows them to keep doing what they do.

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Strypey Jan 19, 2019

@alcinnz It's one thing for the #EFF to form a united front with our corporate exploiters to defend #NetNeutrality against the cable oligopoly, or to fight #DRM #Crippleware pushed by the #MPAA, or some other issue where our interests are actually aligned. That's just good strategy (never fight a war on two fronts). But I have to agree with @aral and @Shamar on them having corporate-sponsored fellowships. We're seen what that kind of sell-out has done to #Mozilla, #Linux Foundation, and others

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Strypey

@alcinnz it also gives muckrakers like #YashaLevin ammunition to use against EFF (for reasons I'm still trying to figure out):
https://thebaffler.com/salvos/all-effd-up-levine
@aral @Shamar

All EFF’d Up | Yasha Levine

The lords of the internet care very little about user privacy—what they want to preserve, is their own commercial license against government regulation of any kind.

The Baffler