New Media Rights is honored to be awarded a 2026 EFF Award. We are receiving this award for our work “protecting creators, entrepreneurs, and internet users from digital threats such as copyright abuse, online harassment, and privacy violations.” It is the most significant recognition given in the digital rights world. Previous award winners include Tim Berners-Lee, Chelsea Manning, Linus Torvalds, and Vint Cerf, among many others. You can see the full announcement here.
EFF describes the award as follows.
“The EFF Awards recognize specific and substantial technical, social, economic, or cultural contributions in diverse fields including journalism, art, digital access, legislation, technology development, and law. For the past 30 years, the EFF Awards—previously known as the Pioneer Awards—have recognized and honored key leaders in the fight for freedom and innovation online. Started when the internet was new, the Awards now reflect the fact that the online world has become both a necessity in modern life and a continually evolving set of tools for communication, organizing, creativity, and increasing human potential.”
When we got started 20 years ago, blogging, social media, and Youtube were the new technologies. We guessed that increased communication and sharing online meant alot of intellectual property and privacy issues would arise. They did. We started working to educate and advocate for filmmakers, journalists, artists, researchers, and small businesses. Today, as a law clinic of California Western School of Law we’ve worked on thousands of legal matters, stewarded educational resources that have been visited millions of times, and impacted copyright and net neutrality regulation and policy.
We are grateful to the New Media Rights and California Western School of Law staff, and hundreds of law students that have helped us serve the public over the years. Thank you to EFF, and congratulations to fellow EFF Award winners for 2026, Access Now, 7amleh – The Arab Center for the Advancement of Social Media, and DeFlock.
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