UK MP Demands Zuckerberg Bring In Facebook “Safeguards” (Encryption Backdoors)

If you’re tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. UK officials are demanding that before Meta rolls out end-to-end encryption for its Messenger and Instagram platforms – it must simultaneously significantly weaken that very same security feature. The demand of CEO Mark Zuckerberg is to ensure there are “safeguards” (i.e., encryption backdoors) built in first. These politicians are, as ever, “thinking of the children” (rather than, as their critics rather suspect, looking for ways to facilitate mass state surveillance). However, end-to-end encryption is in fact thinking of the children – and of every internet user, by ensuring security of platforms and communications, which would otherwise be left open to abuse from not only by governments, but also a variety of regular criminals. The media now quotes Tom Tugendhat, UK’s Minister of State for Security, as urging Meta to make sure those “safeguards” are baked in for UK users, in order to thwart pedophiles’ activity. That there are legitimate ways for law enforcement to fight this, and other types of serious crime, while not undermining the safety of everyone on the internet, is being completely ignored here. Instead, Tugendhat is making emotional appeals, and speaks about the need to stop “sick criminals.” Again – that need certainly exists, and they are being discovered and stopped by law enforcement all the time – but, the minister’s bizarre narrative is that if Messenger and Instagram are secured with encryption, this will be an “extraordinary moral failing”…UK MP Demands Zuckerberg Bring In Facebook “Safeguards” (Encryption Backdoors)