Users are frustrated with legacy social media companies. Unpredictable censorship, hostility, and dodgy information collide on platforms that seem designed to exploit your emotions for ad revenue. Yet social media also sparked positive social movements, fostered creativity, and connected people in ways that were once unimaginable. Is it possible to effectively build the kinds of communities we want online while avoiding the pitfalls that have driven people away?
Join our panel featuring EFF Civil Liberties Director David Greene, EFF Director for International Freedom of Expression Jillian York, Mastodon's Felix Hlatky, Bluesky's Emily Liu, and Spill's Kenya Parham as they explore the future of free expression online and why social media might still be worth saving.
Is There Hope for Social Media?
Thursday, March 20th
12:00 PM - 1:00 PM Pacific - Check Local Time
This event is LIVE and FREE!
Accessibility
This event will be live-captioned and recorded. EFF is committed to improving accessibility for our events. If you have any accessibility questions regarding the event, please contact events@eff.org.
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Upcoming Events
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Recording
We hope you and your friends can join us live! If you can't make it, we’ll post the recording afterward on YouTube and the Internet Archive!
About the Speakers
David Greene (EFF) - Moderator
David Greene, Senior Staff Attorney and Civil Liberties Director, has significant experience litigating First Amendment issues in state and federal trial and appellate courts. David currently serves on the steering committee of the Free Expression Network, the governing committee of the ABA Forum on Communications Law, and on advisory boards for several arts and free speech organizations across the country. David is also an adjunct professor at the University of San Francisco School of Law, where he teaches classes in First Amendment and media law and was formerly an instructor in the journalism department at San Francisco State University. He has written and lectured extensively on many areas of First Amendment Law, including as a contributor to the International Encyclopedia of Censorship. Before joining EFF, David was for twelve years the Executive Director and Lead Staff Counsel for First Amendment Project, where he worked with EFF on numerous cases including Bunner v. DVDCCA. David also previously served as program director of the National Campaign for Freedom of Expression where he was the principal contributor and general editor of the NCFE Quarterly and the principal author of the NCFE Handbook to Understanding, Preparing for and Responding to Challenges to your Freedom of Artistic Expression. He also practiced with the firms Bryan Cave LLP and Hancock, Rothert & Bunshoft. Way back in 1998, he was a founding member, with David Sobel and Shari Steele, of the Internet Free Expression Alliance. He is a 1991 graduate of Duke University School of Law.
Jillian York (EFF)
Jillian C. York is EFF's Director for International Freedom of Expression and is based in Berlin, Germany. Her work examines state and corporate censorship and its impact on culture and human rights, with a focus on historically marginalized communities. At EFF, she leads coalitions, writes about state and corporate censorship, and contributes to various other areas of the organization's work. Jillian is the author of Silicon Values: The Future of Free Speech Under Surveillance Capitalism (Verso, 2021) and has written for Motherboard, MIT Technology Review, and WIRED, among others. She is a visiting professor at the College of Europe Natolin in Warsaw. She is also a regular speaker at global events.
Felix Hlatky (Mastodon)
Felix Hlatky has been the Chief Financial Officer of Mastodon since 2020. Felix helped Eugen by incorporating the project in a non-profit LLC in Germany and raising additional funds from Prototype Fund, NLnet and GLS Bank. Felix is the CEO of SOLARYS, a company developing software for volunteer firefighters in the DACH region.
Emily Liu (Bluesky)
Emily Liu is the Head of Special Projects at Bluesky, an open social network that gives creators independence from platforms, developers the freedom to build, and users a choice in their experience. Previously, Emily built election models and visualizations at The Washington Post, archival tooling at The New York Times, and automated fact-checking at the Duke Reporters’ Lab.
Kenya Parham (Spill)
Kenya Parham is the Chief Growth Officer at the chart-topping social app SPILL. In her role, she leads multiple departments within the company - Community, Creators, Partnerships, Trust & Safety (Support + Moderation), Editorial & Revenue. She is responsible for all growth, revenue, and user lifecycle initiatives; optimizing the complete user journey; maximizing retention; scaling revenue operations; and building high-performing teams focused on user success.
Kenya is the voice of the SPILL community within the company, working to onboard and support creators and communities around the world. By forging first-to-market partnerships and activations with some of the biggest media partners, agencies, and brands, Kenya has achieved landmark success in developing a successful revenue structure for SPILL while in its beta stage, resulting in SPILL's projection to cross $1M in annualized revenue in 2025. Kenya is also leading the charge to help the platform actualize their goal of being a safer, more fun, more enjoyable place on the internet by authoring SPILL’s Community Guidelines and building SPILL’s Trust & Safety infrastructure, which has contributed to SPILL reporting significantly less hate speech and harmful content than any other social platform.
