In honor of International Women’s Day, we asked five women at EFF about women in digital rights, freedom of expression, technology, and tech activism who have inspired us.  

Anna Politkovskaya 

Jillian York, Activist 
This International Women’s Day, I want to honor the memory of Anna Politkovskaya, the Russian investigative journalist who relentlessly exposed political and social abuses, endured harassment and violence for her work, and was ultimately killed for telling the truth. I had just started my career when I learned of her death, and it forced me to confront that freedom of expression isn’t an abstract principle but rather something people risk—and sometimes lose—their lives for. 

Her story reminds me that journalism at its best is an act of moral courage, not just a profession. In the face of threats, poison, and relentless pressure to stay silent, she chose to continue writing about what she saw, insisting that ordinary people’s lives were worth the world’s attention. She refused to compromise with power, even when she knew it could cost her life. To me, defending freedom of expression means defending those like Anna who bear witness to injustice, prioritize truth, and hold power to account for those whose voices are silenced.  

Cindy Cohn 

Corynne McSherry, Legal Director 
There are so many women who have shaped tech history—most of whom are still unsung heroes—that it’s hard to single out just one. But it’s easier this year because it’s a chance to celebrate my boss, Cindy Cohn, before she leaves EFF for her next adventure.  

Cindy has been fighting for our digital rights for 30 years, leading EFF’s legal work and eventually the whole organization. She helped courts understand that code is speech deserving of constitutional protections at a time when many judges weren’t entirely sure what code even was. She led the fight against NSA spying, and even though outdated and ill-fitting doctrines like the state secrets privilege prevented courts from ruling on the obvious unconstitutionality of the NSA’s mass surveillance program, the fight itself led to real reforms that have expanded over time.   

I’ve worked closely with her for much of her EFF career, starting in 2005 when we sued Sony for installing spyware in millions of computers, and I’ve seen firsthand her work as a visionary lawyer, outstanding writer, and tireless champion for user privacy, free expression, and innovation. She’s also warm and funny, with the biggest heart in the world, and I’m proud to call her a friend as well as a mentor.  

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Jane

Sarah Hamid, Activist 
When talking about women in tech, we usually mean founders, engineers, and executives. But just as important are the women who quietly built the practices that underpin today’s movement security culture. 

For as long as social movements have organized in the shadow of state surveillance, women have been designing the protocols, mutual aid networks, and information flows that keep people alive. Those threats feel ever-escalating: fusion‑center monitoring of protests, federal agencies infiltrating and subpoenaing encrypted Signal and social media chats, prosecutors mining search histories.  

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the underground Jane abortion counseling service—formally the Abortion Counseling Service of Women’s Liberation—built what we would now recognize as a feminist infosec project for abortion access. Jane connected an estimated 11,000 people with safer abortions before Roe v. Wade, using a single public phone number—“Call Jane”—paired with code names, compartmentalized roles, and minimal records so no one person held the full story of who needed care, who was providing it, and where. When Chicago police raided the collective in 1972, members destroyed their index‑card files rather than let them become a ready‑made map of patients and helpers—an analog secure‑deletion choice that should feel familiar to anyone who has ever wiped a phone or locked down a shared drive. 

The lesson we should take from Jane is a set of principles that still hold in our encrypted‑but‑insecure present: Collect less, separate what you do collect, and be ready to burn the file box. When a search query, a location ping, or a solidarity post can become evidence, treating information as both lifeline and liability is not paranoia—it is care work.  

Ebele Okobi

Babette Ngene, Director of Public Interest Technology 
In the winter of 2013, I had just landed my first job at the intersection of tech and human rights, working for a prominent nonprofit and I was encouraged to attend regular tech and policy events around town. One such event on internet governance was happening at George Washington University,  focusing on multi-stakeholder engagement on internet policy and governance issues, with companies, nonprofits, and government representatives in attendance. I was inexperienced with these topics, and I’ll admit I was a bit intimidated. 

Then I saw her. She was the only woman on the opening panel, an African woman, an accomplished woman. Not only was she a respected lawyer at Yahoo at the time, but her impressive background, presence, and confident speaking style immediately inspired me. She made me feel like I, too, belonged in that room and could become a powerful voice. 

Ebele Okobi would go on to become one of the most powerful and respected voices in the tech and human rights space, known for her advocacy for digital rights and responsible innovation across Africa and the broader global majority during her tenure at Facebook. Beyond her corporate advocacy, Ebele has consistently championed ethical technology and social justice. She embodies the leadership qualities I value most: empathy, speaking truth to power, integrity, and authenticity. 

I remain in the tech and human rights space because I saw her, because seeing her made me feel seen. Representation truly does matter.  

Ada Lovelace 

Allison Morris, Chief Development Director 
I’m not a lawyer, activist, or technologist; I’m a fundraiser and a lover of stories. And what storyteller at EFF couldn’t help but love Ada Lovelace? The daughter of Lord Byron—the human embodiment of Romanticism—Ada was an innovator in math and science and, ultimately, the writer of the first computer program.  

Lovelace saw the potential in Charles Babbage’s theoretical General Purpose Computer (which was never actually built) and created the foundations of modern computing long before the digital age. In creating the first computer code, Lovelace took Babbage’s concept of a machine that could perform mathematical calculations and realized that it could manipulate symbols as well as numbers. 

Given the expectations of women in her time and the controversy of what work should be attributed to Lovelace as opposed to the man she often worked with, I can’t help but be inspired by her story.  

Women in tech deserve more and brighter spotlights. At EFF, we’ve had the honor of celebrating some of our heroes at our annual EFF Awards, including many women who are leading the digital rights community. For International Women’s Day, we also highlighted the contributions of just a few of these recipients from the last decade, whose work to protect privacy, speech, and creativity online has had a global impact.

As reproductive rights face growing attacks globally, access to content about reproductive healthcare and abortion online has never been more critical. The internet has essential information on topics like where and how to access care, links to abortion funds, and guidance on ways to navigate potential legal risks. Reproductive rights activists use the internet to organize and build community, and healthcare providers rely on it to distribute accurate information to people in need. And for those living in one of the 20+ states where abortion is banned or heavily restricted, the internet is often the only place to find these potentially life-saving resources.  

Nonetheless, both the government and private platforms are increasingly censoring abortion-related speech, at a time when we need it most. Anti-abortion legislators are actively trying to pass laws to limit online speech about abortion, making it harder to share critical resources, discuss legal options, seek safe care, and advocate for reproductive rights. At the same time, social media platforms have increasingly cracked down on abortion-related content, leading to the suppression, shadow-banning, and outright removal of posts and accounts.  

This year, we worked tirelessly to fight censorship of abortion-related information online—whether it originated from the largest social media platforms or the largest state in the U.S.   

As defenders of free expression and access to information online, we have a role to play in understanding where and how this is happening, shining a light on practices that endanger these rights, and taking action to ensure they’re protected. This year, we worked tirelessly to fight censorship of abortion-related information online—whether it originated from the largest social media platforms or the largest state in the U.S.   

Exposing Social Media Censorship 

At the start of 2025, we launched the #StopCensoringAbortion campaign to collect and spotlight the growing number of stories from users that have had abortion-related content censored by social media platforms. Our goal was to better understand how and why this is happening, raise awareness, and hold the platforms accountable.  

Thanks to nearly 100 submissions from educators, advocates, clinics, researchers, and influencers around the world, we confirmed what many already suspected: this speech is being removed and restricted by platforms at an alarming rate. Across the submissions we received, we saw a pattern of over enforcement, lack of transparency, and arbitrary moderation decisions aimed at reproductive health and reproductive justice advocates.  

Notably, almost none of the submissions we reviewed actually violated the platforms’ stated policies. The most common reason Meta gave for removing abortion-related content was that it violated policies on Restricted Goods and Services, which prohibit any “attempts to buy, sell, trade, donate, gift or ask for pharmaceutical drugs.” But the content being removed wasn’t selling medications. Most of the censored posts simply provided factual, educational information—content that’s expressly allowed by Meta.  

In a month-long 10-part series, we broke down our findings. We examined the trends we saw, including stories of individuals and organizations who needed to rely on internal connections at Meta to get wrongfully censored posts restored, examples of account suspensions without sufficient warnings, and an exploration of Meta policies and how they are wrongly applied. We provided practical tips for users to protect their posts from being removed, and we called on platforms to adopt steps to ensure transparency, a functional appeals process, more human review of posts, and consistent and fair enforcement of rules.  

Social media platforms have a First Amendment right to curate the content on their sites—they can remove whatever content they want—and we recognize that. But companies like Meta claim they care about free speech, and their policies explicitly claim to allow educational information and discussions about abortion. We think they have a duty to live up to those promises. Our #StopCensoringAbortion campaign clearly shows that this isn’t happening and underscores the urgent need for platforms to review and consistently enforce their policies fairly and transparently.  

Combating Legislative Attacks on Free Speech  

On top of platform censorship, lawmakers are trying to police what people can say and see about abortion online. So in 2025, we also fought against censorship of abortion information on the legislative front.  

EFF opposed Texas Senate Bill (S.B.) 2880, which would not only outlaw the sale and distribution of abortion pills, but also make it illegal to “provide information” on how to obtain an abortion-inducing drug. Simply having an online conversation about mifepristone or exchanging emails about it could run afoul of the law.  

On top of going after online speakers who create and post content themselves, the bill also targeted social media platforms, websites, email services, messaging apps, and any other “interactive computer service” simply for hosting or making that content available. This was a clear attempt by Texas legislators to keep people from learning about abortion drugs, or even knowing that they exist, by wiping this information from the internet altogether.  

We laid out the glaring free-speech issues with S.B. 2880 and explained how the consequences would be dire if passed. And we asked everyone who cares about free speech to urge lawmakers to oppose this bill, and others like it. Fortunately, these concerns were heard, and the bill never became law.

Our team also spent much of the year fighting dangerous age verification legislation, often touted as “child safety” bills, at both the federal and state level. We raised the alarm on how age verification laws pose significant challenges for users trying to access critical content—including vital information about sexual and reproductive health. By age-gating the internet, these laws could result in websites requiring users to submit identification before accessing information about abortion or reproductive healthcare. This undermines the ability to remain private and anonymous while searching for abortion information online. 

Protecting Life-Saving Information Online 

Abortion information saves lives, and the internet is a primary (and sometimes only) source where people can access it.  

As attacks on abortion information intensify, EFF will continue to fight so that users can post, host, and access abortion-related content without fear of being silenced. We’ll keep pushing for greater accountability from social media platforms and fighting against harmful legislation aimed at censoring these vital resources. The fight is far from over, but we will remain steadfast in ensuring that everyone, regardless of where they live, can access life-saving information and make informed decisions about their health and rights.

This article is part of our Year in Review series. Read other articles about the fight for digital rights in 2025.