After almost twenty years on the platform, EFF is logging off of X. This isn’t a decision we made lightly, but it might be overdue.
EFF: Electronic Frontier Foundation from the USA
The Electronic Frontier Foundation was founded in July of 1990 in response to a basic threat to speech and privacy.
And so should everyone
“But You’re Still on Facebook and TikTok?”
Yes. And we understand why that looks contradictory. Let us explain.
EFF exists to protect people’s digital rights. Not just the people who already value our work, have opted out of surveillance, or have already migrated to the fediverse. The people who need us most are often the ones most embedded in the walled gardens of the mainstream platforms and subjected to their corporate surveillance.
Young people, people of color, queer folks, activists, and organizers use Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook every day. These platforms host mutual aid networks and serve as hubs for political organizing, cultural expression, and community care. Just deleting the apps isn’t always a realistic or accessible option, and neither is pushing every user to the fediverse when there are circumstances like:
- You own a small business that depends on Instagram for customers.
- Your abortion fund uses TikTok to spread crucial information.
- You’re isolated and rely on online spaces to connect with your community.
Our presence on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok is not an endorsement. We’ve spent years exposing how these platforms suppress marginalized voices, enable invasive behavioral advertising, and flag posts about abortion as dangerous. We’ve also taken action in court, in legislatures, and through direct engagement with their staff to push them to change poor policies and practices.
We stay because the people on those platforms deserve access to information, too. We stay because some of our most-read posts are the ones criticizing the very platform we’re posting on. We stay because the fewer steps between you and the resources you need to protect yourself, the better.
I want things to be different. How can we make other people understand the gravity of the situation that using these products bring more harm than good, and they should get off of that platform? (By people, I don’t mean EFF or activists, I mean general population.)
It looks like they left because they were no longer getting engagement. Not because “it was the right decision”.
I’m glad they made the decision and I get their rationale for staying on other fascist platforms. But let’s not let go of the fact that they would have stayed on twitter if they still had engagement.
Doing the right thing would have been “we know our work is important and we are encouraging our large and active audience to leave twitter and follow us to mastodon. In fact we put together a great blog post on how to make this easy for you.”
Instead this reads as a whiney post about how Musk is minimizing their exposure, which, fair. But still they are trying to make it mean something more than it actually is.
I’m with you. I think there is some value in trying to reach the people on the data-harvesting platforms, but I would rather see that coupled with an incessant campaign to guide people into the Fediverse. At the end of every post, link to an article about how to do it. Do a monthly reminder about migrating and how & why the Fediverse is better.
I genuinely appreciate the work EFF does, but I think that this move is long overdue, and they could be doing more with their platform.
