You discussed two distinct groups: "certain ideological concerns" and "the kind of stuff we tend to think the EFF primarily cares about". I think you're getting this type of response because many of us can't see any actual difference between those two groups besides your own politics and assumptions.
It's an association fallacy - Musk may be a radical extremist on the right, and a technology mogul, you may find yourself aligning with some of his world views (not all of them, remember he is an extremist relative to yourself).
So when people support EFF's technological goals (freedoms for users on technology platforms), if they are themselves possibly on the right, they project their own values onto the organization or system (which here is the EFF).
Never-mind if some of those values are incompatible with the values you think you hold (being authoritarian generally is incompatible with being not being authoritarian about technology). When someone points out the (otherwise obvious) contradiction to you, you're surprised that your set of values is incongruous.
Now this can happen to anyone coming from any political starting point, they agree with something but find it doesn't quite fit with their world views. If you are deeply religious about it, you tend to hold on for dear life and either decide to "pick" on set of values over another (suddenly you realize, actually, yes you would like to enslave everyone) or engage in some form of hypocrisy or another (authoritarians are good, but for some reason or the other I'm going to make an exception for technology).
I can't definitively give you a top three and honestly don't see any value in ranking them like that. I would simply describe them as the ACLU for technology and the Internet in that they fight for general civil liberties. X and more specifically Elon Musk have shown that they are on the opposite side when it comes to many of those civil liberties even if they all agree on some other issues. Online censorship (both explicit and through algorithmic bias) is the most obvious example that bridges your two distinct groups. Musk might claim he agrees with the EFF on that, but through his and X's actions, it's clear he doesn't.
EFF has basically only succeeded in defending Section 230, which makes me wonder if the people who talk in this article and the people elsewhere on HN denouncing Section 230 know about each other.
> I think you're getting this type of response because many of us can't see any actual difference between those two groups besides your own politics and assumptions.
I think that is why, yes.
I also think the differences are really obvious, and I genuinely can't understand why so many people here can't see that.
This might be the most interesting insight I gained by commenting here today. I expected people to be on board with it; I didn't expect people to be so acclimated to it that they don't even see how others might notice it.
My original comment did not claim that they were not ideological and it did not claim that that they do not do political activism, so a reply of "[o]f course they care about ideological concerns" makes no sense to me.
You said the "statement pretty clearly shows that they have certain ideological concerns..." like you were uncovering some hidden truth or gotcha in between the lines here. Was that not what you intended to write?
And then like what is the point of your original comment if you agree that what you could only deduce earlier is now an obvious truism?
You discussed two distinct groups: "certain ideological concerns" and "the kind of stuff we tend to think the EFF primarily cares about". I think you're getting this type of response because many of us can't see any actual difference between those two groups besides your own politics and assumptions.
You might be right; I don't know what the broad populace thinks of what EFF does.
I'll ask you then: What are the three main areas of advocacy where you think the EFF has been the most visible and/or effective?
It's an association fallacy - Musk may be a radical extremist on the right, and a technology mogul, you may find yourself aligning with some of his world views (not all of them, remember he is an extremist relative to yourself).
So when people support EFF's technological goals (freedoms for users on technology platforms), if they are themselves possibly on the right, they project their own values onto the organization or system (which here is the EFF).
Never-mind if some of those values are incompatible with the values you think you hold (being authoritarian generally is incompatible with being not being authoritarian about technology). When someone points out the (otherwise obvious) contradiction to you, you're surprised that your set of values is incongruous.
Now this can happen to anyone coming from any political starting point, they agree with something but find it doesn't quite fit with their world views. If you are deeply religious about it, you tend to hold on for dear life and either decide to "pick" on set of values over another (suddenly you realize, actually, yes you would like to enslave everyone) or engage in some form of hypocrisy or another (authoritarians are good, but for some reason or the other I'm going to make an exception for technology).
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I can't definitively give you a top three and honestly don't see any value in ranking them like that. I would simply describe them as the ACLU for technology and the Internet in that they fight for general civil liberties. X and more specifically Elon Musk have shown that they are on the opposite side when it comes to many of those civil liberties even if they all agree on some other issues. Online censorship (both explicit and through algorithmic bias) is the most obvious example that bridges your two distinct groups. Musk might claim he agrees with the EFF on that, but through his and X's actions, it's clear he doesn't.
EFF has basically only succeeded in defending Section 230, which makes me wonder if the people who talk in this article and the people elsewhere on HN denouncing Section 230 know about each other.
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> I think you're getting this type of response because many of us can't see any actual difference between those two groups besides your own politics and assumptions.
I think that is why, yes.
I also think the differences are really obvious, and I genuinely can't understand why so many people here can't see that.
This might be the most interesting insight I gained by commenting here today. I expected people to be on board with it; I didn't expect people to be so acclimated to it that they don't even see how others might notice it.
Why would you say "this statement shows XYZ" if you didn't believe XYZ was a new piece of information?
My original comment did not claim that they were not ideological and it did not claim that that they do not do political activism, so a reply of "[o]f course they care about ideological concerns" makes no sense to me.
You said the "statement pretty clearly shows that they have certain ideological concerns..." like you were uncovering some hidden truth or gotcha in between the lines here. Was that not what you intended to write?
And then like what is the point of your original comment if you agree that what you could only deduce earlier is now an obvious truism?
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