The forum aims to bring together notable people, including former heads of state, winners of the Nobel Peace Prize, prisoners of conscience, as well as of other public figures in order to network and exchange ideas about human rights and exposing dictatorships.

Participants included Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel; Czech playwright and politician Václav Havel; Kurdish rights advocate Leyla Zana; and Tibetan former political prisoner Palden Gyatso.

The event focused on the progress made in the realms of civil liberties and freedoms over the past century, while highlighting the innovation of modern-day advocates—activists, policy makers, world leaders, and media entrepreneurs.

The 2012 theme was "Out of Darkness, Into Light", focusing on forms of modern-day slavery; PR agency support for dictatorships; the drug war's impact on human rights; Russian opposition to Vladimir Putin; and the state of the Arab uprisings.

Speakers included Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng; recently escaped Bahraini blogger Ali Abdulemam; Peruvian Nobel laureate Mario Vargas Llosa; Zimbabwean artist Owen Maseko; Tibetan prime minister Lobsang Sangay; creator of the Magnitsky Act Bill Browder; Palestinian journalist Asmaa al-Ghoul; Malaysian lawyer and democracy advocate Ambiga Sreenevasan; and Serbian nonviolent resistance leader Srđa Popović.

In 2014, speakers included Egyptian satirist Bassem Youssef; Harvard cognitive scientist Steven Pinker; Cuban blogger Yoani Sánchez; American actor Jeffrey Wright; Ukrainian pro-democracy activist Yulia Marushevska; Turkish protester Erdem Gündüz, as well as Marcela Turati Muñoz, Yeonmi Park, Hyeonseo Lee, Iyad El-Baghdadi, Ti-Anna Wang, Suleiman Bakhit, Jamila Raqib, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Maria Aljokhina and Mikhail Khodorkovskij.

[8][9] In 2015, speakers included Charlie Hebdo columnist Zineb El Rhazoui, North Korean Ji Seong-ho, Afghan entrepreneur Saad Mohseni, and Twitter vice president Colin Crowell.

[12] In 2017, speakers included Norway's Prime Minister Erna Solberg, the Maldives' first democratically elected president, Mohamed Nasheed, Peter Thiel, and American Nobel Laureate and director of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, Jody Williams.

[14][15][16] In 2018, speakers included Clare Rewcastle Brown, Lebo Mashile, Asma Khalifa, Galia Benartzi, Mu Sochua, Leyla Yunus, Tiff Stevenson, Antonio Ledezma, Netiwit Chotiphatphaisal, Fang Zheng, Wael Ghonim, Jason Silva, Rick Doblin, Maziar Bahari and Emmanuel Jal.

[25] In 2016, the San Francisco Freedom Forum took place at the Regency Center and included Rosa Maria Paya; Zineb El Rhazoui, Danilo Maldonado Machado, Lee Hyeon-seo, Roya Mahboob, Yulia Marushevska, Abdalaziz Alhamza, and Kimberley Motley.

[27] 2013 recipients were Syrian cartoonist Ali Ferzat, North Korean democracy activist Park Sang Hak, and Cuban civil society group Ladies in White—represented by their leader Berta Soler.