The reason that "slippery slope" is almost never a fallacy is that people with intentions to perform actions that are outside the overton window[0] of acceptabl

The reason that "slippery slope" is almost never a fallacy is that people with intentions to perform actions that are outside the overton window[0] of acceptable behavior will first do a thing that lies just on the edge of the overton window. It is currently considered completely unacceptable for companies to scan the data on the user's own disk. If someone wanted to start doing that, they would have to create a plausible and convincing excuse. Once people accept that excuse and time passes, they can slowly "expand" the territory of this excuse (push the overton window further). "Protecting the children" is exactly this kind of plausible and convincing excuse. It needs not be the case that Apple specifically wants to scan user data so they came up with this excuse. It's simply that, once scanning users data "for the good of humanity" becomes acceptable, _some_ malicious actor will push the overton window further and further. Imagine in 10 years from now, all operating systems will scan users data to detect potential child porn material. It might even become required by law, or just by "social pressure". Just like it is now almost required by "social pressure" that social media platforms censor discourse and information. It's then very easy to expand this capability to also detect illegally downloaded music, or adult videos, or whatever deemed unacceptable. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window