An ex-employee at Facebook recently took to Twitter in order to voice his concern for Meta’s plans for incorporating end to end encryption across Messenger and Instagram.
End to end encryption has been akin to a shield that social media and tech conglomerate Meta has been holding up for quite some time against the near-endless barrage of criticism and infuriation from both its user base and the general populace alike. Of course, as more and more gets unearthed about the company and its activities at large, particularly due to the recent slew of leaks by whistleblower Frances Haugen, the shield’s starting to wear down to paper-thin quality. Meta being a major multi-billion-dollar corporation within a late stage capitalistic world means that it’ll probably survive anything chucked its way. However, a recent development may lead to the first hole being burnt through our figurative paper shield. Funnily enough, the cigarette responsible comes from yet another ex-Facebook employee. What are the odds?
David Theil, previously working under Facebook’s Child Safety division, is an individual who’s almost definitely witnessed the dark side that the social network has to offer. Be it tracking and shutting down groomers, extortion, or any number of offenses children are vulnerable to (quite a lot, actually), Mr. Theil’s department had to keep a very close eye on all facets of uncivil behavior. Therefore, his opinions on end to end encryption and how it’ll affect security across Meta’s platforms come from a place of information and, more importantly, understanding.
Theil states in his Twitter thread that Meta’s intentions with implementing encryption across Instagram and Messenger are not born of lofty dreams about peace and user security. Instead, he postulates that a major reason for Meta doing anything of the sort has to do with evading scrutiny. With end to end encryption, while offering users with a semblance of security, the tech giant also legally hides information from law enforcement agencies and essentially keeps its nose clean. What’s worse is that Facebook, and Meta by extension, also seem to be aware of the negative effects of such implementation.
Apparently, tracking down groomers, exploitation agents, and the like becomes very difficult, with accuracy falling down to a mere 10% of the original amount. End to end encryption, according to Theil, isn’t worth all that’s being lost in the process. This also unintentionally harkens back to a series of tweets sent out by WhatsApp’s competition Telegram, which also stated that end to end encryption on the platform still kept records of all chats, therefore not really keeping anything safe at all.
The bottom line is that Meta has found yet another way of informing everyone that it is a cold, heartless, and money oriented organization. Then again, not really the biggest of shockers at this point.
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End to end encryption has been akin to a shield that social media and tech conglomerate Meta has been holding up for quite some time against the near-endless barrage of criticism and infuriation from both its user base and the general populace alike. Of course, as more and more gets unearthed about the company and its activities at large, particularly due to the recent slew of leaks by whistleblower Frances Haugen, the shield’s starting to wear down to paper-thin quality. Meta being a major multi-billion-dollar corporation within a late stage capitalistic world means that it’ll probably survive anything chucked its way. However, a recent development may lead to the first hole being burnt through our figurative paper shield. Funnily enough, the cigarette responsible comes from yet another ex-Facebook employee. What are the odds?
David Theil, previously working under Facebook’s Child Safety division, is an individual who’s almost definitely witnessed the dark side that the social network has to offer. Be it tracking and shutting down groomers, extortion, or any number of offenses children are vulnerable to (quite a lot, actually), Mr. Theil’s department had to keep a very close eye on all facets of uncivil behavior. Therefore, his opinions on end to end encryption and how it’ll affect security across Meta’s platforms come from a place of information and, more importantly, understanding.
Theil states in his Twitter thread that Meta’s intentions with implementing encryption across Instagram and Messenger are not born of lofty dreams about peace and user security. Instead, he postulates that a major reason for Meta doing anything of the sort has to do with evading scrutiny. With end to end encryption, while offering users with a semblance of security, the tech giant also legally hides information from law enforcement agencies and essentially keeps its nose clean. What’s worse is that Facebook, and Meta by extension, also seem to be aware of the negative effects of such implementation.
Apparently, tracking down groomers, exploitation agents, and the like becomes very difficult, with accuracy falling down to a mere 10% of the original amount. End to end encryption, according to Theil, isn’t worth all that’s being lost in the process. This also unintentionally harkens back to a series of tweets sent out by WhatsApp’s competition Telegram, which also stated that end to end encryption on the platform still kept records of all chats, therefore not really keeping anything safe at all.
The bottom line is that Meta has found yet another way of informing everyone that it is a cold, heartless, and money oriented organization. Then again, not really the biggest of shockers at this point.
