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This statement to me seems to have no basis in reality and no supporting examples. The EFF is a non-profit whose interests often directly clash with that of tel
by easygenes 4y ago
This statement to me seems to have no basis in reality and no supporting examples. The EFF is a non-profit whose interests often directly clash with that of telecoms, particularly when it comes to advocacy of online privacy vis-a-vis E2E encryption and general anti-tracking lobbying and awareness initiatives.
Their patent-busting activities are fairly focused on telecom-held patents which are overly stifling of innovation. Their general stance against telecom-enabled broad government surveillance also indirectly harms telecom bottom lines. I could go on, really.
I am genuinely curious if you can provide clear counterexamples which appear motivated by alignment to telecom interests though.
Edit: In the name of playing devil's advocate, I went searching for examples that could be construed as benefiting telecom interests. The only one I can point to from recent history is their initiative to enable "Broadband for All", which includes advocacy for public funds to go into building out fiber infrastructure. While this may benefit telcos, it also seems unambiguously to be in the public interest and particularly benefits rural and underprivileged populations at the cost of wealthy urbanized ones. [1]
I also looked for evidence of meddling in their financials, but found only a transparent 501(c)(3) which has maintained a grassroots funding, with most funds coming from small individual donors. They are also a top scoring non-profit on Charity Navigator for their financials. [2]
1: https://annualreport.eff.org/#broadband https://annualreport.eff.org/#broadband
2: https://www.charitynavigator.org/ein/043091431 https://www.charitynavigator.org/ein/043091431
- user3939382 4y agoHere's some more info on this https://thebaffler.com/salvos/all-effd-up-levine https://thebaffler.com/salvos/all-effd-up-levine https://news.bloomberglaw.com/privacy-and-data-security/facebook-google-donate-heavily-to-privacy-advocacy-groups https://news.bloomberglaw.com/privacy-and-data-security/face... They've accepted millions of dollars in donations from organizations and their executives' foundations that they're ostensibly a watchdog for. Their being okay with the conflict of interest is reason enough for me not to trust them.