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Facebooks Encryption Makes it Harder to Detect Child Abuse

Frustratingly, Facebook, the worlds largest social network, is set to grow the digital realm where images of child sexual abuse can spread freely.

Earlier this year, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that his company is expanding the use of end-to-end encryption on its services, preventing Facebook or anyone else from seeing the contents of communications. When billions of people use a service to connect, some of them are going to misuse it for truly terrible things like child exploitation, terrorism, and extortion.

Broader adoption of end-to-end encryption would cripple the efficacy of programs like PhotoDNA, significantly increasing the risk and harm to children around the world.

Knowing that tens of millions of examples of the most heartbreaking imagery pass through its services every year, why would Facebook undermine the ability to prevent itself from becoming a safe haven for child predators?

The not so cynical answer is that Facebook is leveraging the backlash from its recent privacy scandals to launch a strategy that provides plausible deniability against the equally loud accusations that the company is not doing enough to suppress child abuse material, terrorist propaganda, crime, or dangerous conspiracies. By encrypting the content moving through, Facebook gets a twofer: It can claim to be ignorant of the abuse, while also telling the public that it cares about privacy.

Many in law enforcement have argued that shifting to end-to-end encryption would severely hamper law enforcement and national security.

The US attorney general, his British and Australian counterparts, and the 28 European Union member states have all urged Zuckerberg to delay the implementation of end-to-end encryption until proper safeguards can be put in place.

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Original article
Author: Conde Nast

Conde Nast has recently written 10 articles on similar topics including :
  1. "The Facebook CEO invoked the civil-rights era to justify kowtowing to money and power. It doesn’t wash". (October 18, 2019)
  2. "Opinion: Platform giants need to meet the public interest standard, just like broadcast media". (October 4, 2019)
  3. "The social media company will pay companies including the New York Times, WIREDand Breitbartto distribute their content". (October 26, 2019)
  4. "As attorneys general from one state after another announced probes into tech giants this year, Californias was conspicuously silent. Not anymore". (November 6, 2019)
  5. "The social media company says it will more closely monitor foreign outlets, and warn users when posts are considered falseunless they're from politicians". (October 22, 2019)
  6. "The departures of Visa, Mastercard, and three others mean that more than ever, Libra is Facebook’s cryptocurrency project". (October 12, 2019)
  7. "Facebook's flaws are apparent, but the CEO's reluctance to police speech shows he stills sees it as a place that connects people and makes the world a better place". (November 1, 2019)
  8. "The companys fact-checking policy treats people who arent politicians as second-class citizens". (November 7, 2019)
  9. "Opinion: Since 2017, nearly every time Mark Zuckerberg has tried to sound thoughtful, he sounds unprepared, shallow, and full of hubris. Time to zip it". (October 29, 2019)
  10. "Whether it's Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or Snapchat, lock down who can see what you're up to". (October 20, 2019)
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