One Day After Passage of Orwellian “Online Safety Bill,” UK Home Office Attacks Private Messaging

If you’re tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. It’s not often you can say this of a UK government, but this time, they seem to be moving fast. This comes after the guise of concern for the well-being of regular folk – children in particular – that the government has pushed for a long time, and finally managed to pass, in the form of the draconian Online Safety Bill. And just one day after that happened, it went against what opponents have long been saying is the real purpose of it – namely harming, possibly eventually irreparably, end-to-end encryption, which happens to guarantee everybody’s safety and privacy on the internet. But, as politics oblige, the Home Office seems to first probe what, if anything, can be done through intimidation tactics. Especially with their previous and in many cases susceptible “clients,” like Meta (Facebook.) So, Facebook seems to be chosen as the first for the slaughter (for real or promised E2E). After all – “make the first one count.” The situation is the following: Meta – is still in the phase of “planning” to E2E messages on its platforms, like WhatsApp. That is strongly discouraged by the government in London, and while this is no “new news” – they now have a legal argument to pursue. Judging by reports in outlets such as the BBC, the whole thing is like a bad case of role-play in a community theater production: on one hand,…One Day After Passage of Orwellian “Online Safety Bill,” UK Home Office Attacks Private Messaging