Tl;dr: Saying farewell to GFF, will be joining EFF. It’s been quite the ride, and I am so very thankful for everything we got done together.
Building the Center for User Rights at Gesellschaft für Freiheitsrechte e.V. over the past months has been a lot of fun and one of the most fulfilling projects I have ever worked on. Its mission is as simple as it is relevant: Laws like the Digital Services Act are only as good as their enforcement. And to tip the scales towards more fair and equitable online spaces, a lot more enforcement work that champions fundamental rights needs to happen.
From the get-go, the team behind the Center has been not only incredibly dedicated, but also wildly successful:
🔹 We helped shape the German law transposing the DSA, making sure that the national oversight authority is a strong and competent one, that users can lodge complaints easily, and that the Federal Policy Office needs to be transparent about use data disclosed by platforms in case of suspicions about illegal activity https://lnkd.in/eWYvSHfz
🔹 Together with our partners European Digital Rights, Global Witness and Bits of Freedom, we filed a complaint against LinkedIn’s non-compliant targeting of online ads based on people’s sensitive personal data - and won! https://lnkd.in/exQ3Uxt5
🔹 We have been advocating for a swift implementation of the data access rules in the DSA, to finally allow researchers to access the information they need to answer some of the most relevant questions about online platforms’ impact on elections, disinformation and other systemic risks. https://lnkd.in/eparwSWe and https://lnkd.in/e_27iY3v
🔹 Next, we went after five online platforms – Meta, YouTube, TikTok, X, and LinkedIn – for not complying with the DSA’s requirement to allow organizations like GFF to represent users in internal complaints to make sure that users get the help they need to hold platforms to account. https://lnkd.in/ebqQVYHR
…and there are many more exciting projects in the pipeline.
I will be leaving GFF at the end of this month, a choice that has not been easy to make. But knowing that my brilliant colleague Jürgen Bering will take over from me as head of the Center for User Rights helps a lot. I can’t wait to see what he, Dr. Simone Ruf, Benjamin Lück, Joschka Selinger, Davy Wang, LL.M. (UConn) and Julius Schwenkenberg will accomplish in the future.
As for my next steps, I am excited to move (back) to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) in September, where I will be working on EU digital policy. In many ways, this feels like going back to some of my roots, and I can’t wait to dive back in.