EFF in the Press: 2024 in Review

EFF’s attorneys, activists, and technologists were media rockstars in 2024, informing the public about important issues that affect privacy, free speech, and innovation for people around the world. 

Perhaps the single most exciting media hit for EFF in 2024 was “Secrets in Your Data,” the NOVA PBS documentary episode exploring “what happens to all the data we’re shedding and explores the latest efforts to maximize benefits – without compromising personal privacy.” EFFers Hayley Tsukayama, Eva Galperin, and Cory Doctorow were among those interviewed.

One big-splash story in January demonstrated just how in-demand EFF can be when news breaks. Amazon’s Ring home doorbell unit announced that it would disable its Request For Assistance tool, the program that had let police seek footage from users on a voluntary basis – an issue on which EFF, and Matthew Guariglia in particular, have done extensive work. Matthew was quoted in Bloomberg, the Associated Press, CNN, The Washington Post, The Verge, The Guardian, TechCrunch, WIRED, Ars Technica, The Register, TechSpot, The Focus, American Wire News, and the Los Angeles Business Journal. The Bloomberg, AP, and CNN stories in turn were picked up by scores of media outlets across the country and around the world. Matthew also did interviews with local television stations in New York City, Oklahoma City, Allentown, PA, San Antonio, TX and Norfolk, VA. Matthew and Jason Kelley were quoted in Reason, and EFF was cited in reports by the New York Times, Engadget, The Messenger, the Washington Examiner, Silicon UK, Inc., the Daily Mail (UK), AfroTech, and KFSN ABC30 in Fresno, CA, as well as in an editorial in the Times Union of Albany, NY.

Other big stories for us this year – with similar numbers of EFF media mentions – included congressional debates over banning TikTok and censoring the internet in the name of protecting children, state age verification laws, Google’s backpedaling on its Privacy Sandbox promises, the Supreme Court’s Netchoice and Murthy rulings, the arrest of Telegram’s CEO, and X’s tangles with Australia and Brazil.

EFF is often cited in tech-oriented media, with 34 mentions this year in Ars Technica, 32 mentions in The Register, 23 mentions in WIRED, 23 mentions in The Verge, 20 mentions in TechCrunch, 10 mentions in The Record from Recorded Future, nine mentions in 404 Media, and six mentions in Gizmodo. We’re also all over the legal media, with 29 mentions in Law360 and 15 mentions in Bloomberg Law. 

But we’re also a big presence in major U.S. mainstream outlets, cited 38 times this year in the Washington Post, 11 times in the New York Times, 11 times in NBC News, 10 times in the Associated Press, 10 times in Reuters, 10 times in USA Today, and nine times in CNN. And we’re being heard by international audiences, with mentions in outlets including Germany’s Heise and Deutsche Welle, Canada’s Globe & Mail and Canadian Broadcasting Corp., Australia’s Sydney Morning Herald and Australian Broadcasting Corp., the United Kingdom’s Telegraph and Silicon UK, and many more. 

We’re being heard in local communities too. For example, we talked about the rapid encroachment of police surveillance with media outlets in Sarasota, FL; the San Francisco Bay Area; Baton Rouge, LA; Columbus, OH; Grand Rapids, MI; San Diego, CA; Wichita, KS; Buffalo, NY; Seattle, WA; Chicago, IL;  Nashville, TN; and Sacramento, CA, among other localities. 

EFFers also spoke their minds directly in op-eds placed far and wide, including: 

• Street Sheet, Feb. 15: “No on E: Endangering Accountability and Privacy” (Nash Sheard) 
• 48 Hills, Feb. 27: “San Franciscans know a lot about tech. That’s why they should vote No on E” (Jason Kelley and Matthew Guariglia) 
• AllAfrica, March 8: “Rihanna, FIFA, Guinness, Marvel, Nike – All Could Be Banned in Ghana” (Daly Barnett, Paige Collings, and Dave Maass) 
• The Advocate, May 13: “Why I’m protecting privacy in our connected world” (Erica Portnoy) 
• Teen Vogue, June 19: “The Section 230 Sunset Act Would Cut Off Young People’s Access to Online Communities” (Jason Kelley) 
• UOL, Aug. 5: “ONU pode fechar pacto global de vigilância arbitrária; o que fará o Brasil?” (Veridiana Alimonti and Michel Roberto de Souza) 
• Byline Times, Aug. 16, “Keir Starmer Wants Police to Expand Use of Facial Recognition Technology Across UK – He Should Ban it Altogether” (Paige Collings) 
• Slate, Aug. 22, “Expanded Police Surveillance Will Get Us ‘Broken Windows’ on Steroids” (Matthew Guariglia) 
• Just Security, Aug. 27: “The UN Cybercrime Convention: Analyzing the Risks to Human Rights and Global Privacy” (Katitza Rodriguez) 
• Context, Sept. 17: “X ban in Brazil: Disdainful defiance meets tough enforcement” (Veridiana Alimonti) 
• AZ Central/ Arizona Republic, Sept. 19: “Police drones could silently video your backyard. That’s a problem” (Hannah Zhao) 
• Salon, Oct. 3: “Congress knew banning TikTok was a First Amendment problem. It did so anyway” (Brendan Gilligan) 
• Deseret News, Nov. 30: “Opinion: Students’ tech skills should be nurtured, not punished” (Bill Budington and Alexis Hancock) 

And if you’re seeking some informative listening during the holidays, EFFers joined a slew of podcasts in 2024, including: 

• National Constitution Center’s We the People, Jan. 25: “Unpacking the Supreme Court’s Tech Term” (David Greene) 
• What the Hack? with Adam Levin, Feb. 6: “EFF’s Eva Galperin Is Not the Pope of Fighting Stalkerware (But She Is)” 
• WSJ’s The Future of Everything, Feb. 9: “How Face Scans and Fingerprints Could Become Your Work Badge” (Hayley Tsukayama) 
• Fighting Dark Patterns, Feb. 14: “Dark Patterns and Digital Freedom Today. A conversation with Cindy Cohn.” 
• 2600’s Off the Hook, Feb. 21: episode on Appin’s efforts to intimidate journalists and media outlets from reporting on the company’s alleged hacking history (David Greene and Cooper Quintin) 
• CISO Series’ Defense in Depth, Feb. 22: “When Is Data an Asset and When Is It a Liability?” (F. Mario Trujillo) 
• KCRW’s Scheer Intelligence, March 15: “The banning of TikTok is an attack on the free market” (David Greene) 
• Inside Job Boards and Recruitment Marketplaces, March 22: “Is Glassdoor now violating user privacy and anonymity?” (Aaron Mackey) 
• Firewalls Don’t Stop Dragons, April 15: “Protecting Kids Online” (Joe Mullin) 
• Future Nonprofit, May 7: “Empowerment in Action: Nash Sheard – Building a Strong Bond for Change and Collaboration” 
• Mindplex Podcast, May 17: “Is the TikTok Ban Unconstitutional?” (David Greene) 
• Bioneers: Revolution From the Heart of Nature, Aug. 8: “None of Your Business: Claiming Our Digital Privacy Rights, Reclaiming Democracy” (Cindy Cohn) 
• m/Oppenheim Nonprofit Report, Aug. 27: “Digital Privacy with Electronic Frontier Foundation” (Cindy Cohn) 
• malwarebytes’ Lock and Code, Sept. 9: “What the arrest of Telegram’s CEO means, with Eva Galperin” 
• Financial Times’ Tech Tonic, Sept. 9: “The Telegram case: Privacy vs security” (Eva Galperin) 
• Command Prompt’s More Than A Refresh, Sept. 10: “Cooper Quintin, Senior Staff Technologist @ The EFF” 
• Mindplex Podcast, Sept. 16: “Pavel Durov’s Arrest & Telegram’s Encryption Issues” (David Greene)

This article is part of our Year in Review series. Read other articles about the fight for digital rights in 2024.