No joke, I have sent this clip to folks dozens of times this year. At some point, I said, “What a year, huh?” To which point a friend replied, “Lemon, it’s only August.”
To reiterate the obvious, this was a year of immense change: at Accountable Tech, in the larger tech advocacy movement, and globally. Each day seemed to bring on paradigm-altering updates from around the globe. Not all of this change was good, and almost none of it was smooth. And yet, I look back on 2024 with glints of gratitude.
Throughout all of the trials and tribulations, Accountable Tech made meaningful progress toward a digital future that we all deserve. From protecting kids online to defending democracy to securing greater privacy protections for abortion seekers, I wanted to highlight a few of the biggest moments for our movement.
Protecting Kids Online
Because of Accountable Tech, the youth-led coalition Design It For Us, and our partners, we have made significant strides forward toward protecting kids online. We successfully helped pass the Kids Code in Maryland, which requires Big Tech companies to include safety features in their design and make young people’s profiles private by default. While it stalled in the House, we also successfully passed the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) out of the Senate 91-3. These efforts were driven by people-powered rallies on Capitol Hill and statehouses, the brave testimony of young people and families adversely affected by social media, and hundreds of calls, emails, and letters to elected officials. And this network of young people, parents, medical professionals, and partners will keep up the fight.
Defending Democracy from Big Tech
This year, we knew that billions of people around the world would be voting, and we spent this year raising the alarm about how Big Tech presented a unique threat to democracy. Building on our Democracy by Design framework, we started the year publishing a landmark report, detailing how 10 Big Tech platforms were falling short on election-preparedness. We galvanized hundreds of creators, including activists, journalists, and meme accounts, to demand that Meta end their default restrictions on “political content,” which had the potential to silence marginalized communities and creators disproportionately. Responding to the rise of AI-generated content cropping up of candidates, we launched our No Deepfakes for Democracy campaign to call on major social media companies to stop the spread of political deepfakes.
Amplifying the Dangers of AI
Accountable Tech educated the public on the real-world harms of AI products and organized civil society to unite around a vision for AI policy that is in the public interest. We released a “shadow report” that received support from more than 50 civil society groups and thought leaders, making waves in Axios Pro, Politico Morning Tech, Washington Post’s Tech Brief (twice), and Tech Policy Press. We organized a roundtable featuring Senate Cory Booker and leaders Public Citizen, AI Now Institute, AFL-CIO Tech Institute, GW Law, National Nurses United, Tech Policy Press, and Mozilla. Working with Now This, we also rolled out interviews with workers, creatives, and environmentalists to shine a light on the AI-driven danger that communities are experiencing today, garnering over 1.7 million total views across channels.
Protecting the Privacy of Abortion Seekers
After our research uncovered that Google was still collecting and retaining sensitive location data for trips to abortion clinics, Google announced they would store Location History data only locally on devices. We also pressured Meta to fulfill their promise of encrypted messaging on Facebook Messenger, and the company has since made significant progress toward enabling default encryption.
I’m grateful to my team, partners, and supporters who made this progress possible. I’m proud of everything we accomplished in 2024, and I’m looking forward to the new year.
