How the Watch Dogs Video Game Series Mirrored and Predicted Real-World Digital Rights Issues

When Ubisoft's Watch Dogs 2 was released in 2016, it was a headtrip for those of us working on digital-rights issues in the Bay Area. During the day, I'd fight tech-authoritarianism from EFF's San Francisco offices and then, at night, I'd fight tech-authoritarianism in an uncanny simulation of San Francisco from my home gaming console. Watch Dogs 2 is an open-world video game that follows a hacktivist collective called Dedsec as they take on surveillance tech and discriminatory AI systems that are being controlled by tech bros, government contractors, and corrupt cops. The game's missions often felt like they were ripped from the pages of EFF's Deeplinks blog. EFF’s mission is defending civil liberties in the digital world, and we do that with activists, technologists, and lawyers. If you've ever dreamt of joining Dedsec, you should definitely join us as a member. Join the movement to Take Back CTRL. In fact, we've even got the same merch aesthetic. I cosplayed as the lead character, M