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Comment by anonymousiam | Hacker News Reader

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X is a rare platform where an individual manipulates the algorithm per his own personal political whims. And, yes he is explicitly racist and anti-democratic. No org that cares about freedom should contribute to what is really a personal effort to commandeer the information environment.

The only difference with X is that you know exactly who is manipulating the algorithm (and deciding what's acceptable and what's ban-worthy). And he makes his personal views extremely clear.

With every other platform, it's hidden away behind the scenes, but there's surely powerful individuals making the big decisions about what to promote and what to suppress.

Well, consider that the alternative is a _corporation_ manipulating the algorithm per their own _corporate_ political needs. That's really not much of an improvement. Unless you also think that corporations should have more rights to political speech than individuals, which goes even further than the usual representation of Citizens United.

> changed from neutral rights-focused activism into questionable political activism.

What exactly are “neutral rights”? Every right is political, and none of them are neutral, you’ll always find someone who supports them and someone who opposes them. Remember when Nestlé’s CEO said that calling water a human right was an “extreme” opinion? And there used to be a time when people claimed owning slaves was their right.

What you are calling “questionable” right now is just something you don’t agree with. I have a feeling history will support EFF’s position over yours.

> Would EFF be leaving X if Elon had not taken over?

That’s like asking “would activists fight for your rights if no one was violating them”. I mean, no, but that doesn’t say anything. Had Twitter not have been sold but they eventually did the same things Elon did, then the EFF would probably have left just the same. Had Elon taken over but not done what he did, they probably wouldn’t have. The EFF is not on a personal vendetta, this is about the service as it is right now.

>What exactly are “neutral rights”?

Rights that apply to people even if you disagree with them, like free speech. Something both the left and the right seem to hate.

> Rights that apply to people even if you disagree with them

That is true of every right. A right that doesn’t apply when you disagree isn’t a right.

Just to clarify, until recently you were under the impression that the political advocacy organization you donated to had no political opinions of their own?

GP is complaining about a shift from one set of positions to a different set.

GP (me) is not complaining about shifting positions. EFF was fairly neutral for the prior two decades, and even though I did not agree with everything they did, I thought they were worthy of support. Last year, they began filing some lawsuits without much research or diligence, and without much of a legal basis. I waited a while and watched, and I saw them becoming more and more partisan.

I liked it when they were more about defending rights and less about attacking the "right."

the EFF didn't move from political neutral. The right just moved more right.

> not complaining about shifting positions

> EFF has changed

> EFF was fairly neutral ... Last year, they began ... I saw them becoming more and more partisan

I mean, I read that as a shift.

Read it as you wish. I would have been just as displeased if they had swung "right" instead of "left."

I didn't comment on directionality, just that you were objecting to a change (synonymously, a shift).

I did not see it as a "shift", because IMHO they were non-partisan before, and now they've changed. It's not moving the line, it's creating a line.

They're leaving because the platform because of a combination of not enough real people and elon turning it into a nazi hellscape. The visibility isn't worth the hit to brand reputation which makes sense if you recognise liberty as intersectional

It is hard to someone has been giving EFF >=$1000 a year, every year, for the past 20 years, who also did not consider EFF to be engaging in political activism for 19 of those years.

C'mon. You know what they meant. They are clearly saying that the EFF used to to focus on pretty specific, arguably more bipartisan ideas and initiatives and now it has switched to a much more broad strategy that has strayed from its original mission. Surely, you should be able to understand this pretty basic point.

I do not agree that your statements are implied by GP, I do not agree with the suggestion that the reason for that is my incapacity to understand, and I do not agree with the new statements that you are introducing here either.

They very directly said this.

"but EFF has changed from neutral rights-focused activism into questionable political activism. "

This is saying that they strayed from their original mission. They were focused on a narrow set of beliefs before, and then it changed to focusing on unrelated and more partisan politics.

And yes this was pretty easy to understand.

> bipartisan ideas

An interesting thing about this era is that things which were bipartisan in the 2000s are now seen as partisan. Some examples of things that I remember as bipartisan in the 2000s which are now seen as left-leaning ideas: NATO membership, suffrage for women, freedom from state religion, the Forestry Service, national parks.

Things are changing.

The EFF has always been against a large political segment, namely the status quo of "long-term intellectual property good, DRM good, businesses have the right to do whatever they want with data they collect, businesses have the right to arbitrarily use de-facto monopolies on computing platforms" which make no mistake were never neutral positions about rights.

I can't believe such a nonpolitical organization would do this!!! Come on, you either have to be lying or you were never paying attention.

https://www.eff.org/press/releases/activists-sue-san-francis... https://www.eff.org/press/releases/eff-activists-demonstrate... https://www.eff.org/press/releases/media-alert-eff-argues-ag... https://www.eff.org/press/releases/law-enforcement-use-face-... https://www.eff.org/press/releases/trumps-blocking-people-hi... https://www.eff.org/press/releases/comprehensive-legal-refor...

In a two party world where one of those parties has been captured by a fascist movement, there is no "political neutrality". You're either pro-fascist or anti-fascist. And if you care about rights at all, including free speech, then the correct alignment is anti-fascist.

And yes, this is a US centric comment. The EFF is a US based organization and the center of gravity of the tech world they deal with is in the US.

People who fight for individual rights kinda have a problem with Nazis. Big freaking surprise.

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