What do you get when you gather a bunch of the sharpest legal minds in one room with delicious food and obscure tech law trivia? That's right, you get EFF's 15th Annual Cyberlaw Trivia night!
On June 29th we had a full house—with eight teams from technology law firms and internet companies throughout the Bay Area being put to the test with six rounds of trivia, ready to battle it out for the chance to win champion steins and of course, bragging rights.
After welcoming everyone to the event, EFF's Hannah Diaz began the evening's activities by introducing our snazzy Quiz Master Kurt Opsahl, and our judges Cindy Cohn, David Greene, and Jennifer Lynch. The judges donned their very authentic robes—with Cindy even wearing a wig(!)—and the competition was on!
Kurt started the event by reminding everyone that, "By participating in this contest you acknowledge and agree that Section 230 does not require an ISP to be a neutral platform." After that requirement—that got a good laugh out of everyone—each team's trivia muscles warmed up with "General Questions" for round one.
Round two of trivia, titled "Intellectual Property," included a typo on a slide that the detail oriented lawyers were very quick to point out. At the end of this round, the score was very close, with the leading team "MofoGPT" winning by only one point! The game would continue to be close between the top teams, even with an upset in round six where the judges only awarded a full point to teams that made sure to write down "King Charles III" and award half points to those that only wrote "King Charles."
The evening wrapped with two tie breaker questions, one requiring teams to look at a "logical map of the entire internet" and guess what month and year it took place in. Attendees had to get up from their seats and put on their glasses to answer correctly! The second question was based on more recent news, asking how many TikTok users the CEO said the company had in the US at the time of his testimony in 2023. Teams wouldn't know how they did for the tie breakers till the very end.
Although EFF's legal interns were not eligible for prizes, they also joined the fun and made a great attempt to be a top team by the end of trivia!
But, by the end of round six and the tie breakers, the scores had been tabulated with the winning trivia masterminds being:
EFF hosts Cyberlaw Trivia Night to gather those in the legal community who help protect online freedom for tech users. Among the many firms that continue to dedicate their time, talent, and resources to the cause, we would especially like to thank Morrison Foerster and Wilson Sonsini for sponsoring this event! Thank you to No Starch Press for their support of EFF as well.
If you are an attorney working to defend civil liberties in the digital world, consider joining EFF's Cooperating Attorneys list. This network helps EFF connect people to legal assistance when we are unable to assist. Lawyers who are interested can go here to join the Cooperating Attorneys list.
Are you interested in attending or sponsoring an upcoming EFF Trivia Night? Please reach out to mei@eff.org for more information.