As I tried to explain on the thread about the Financial Times coverage of this (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37416203 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?

As I tried to explain on the thread about the Financial Times coverage of this (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37416203 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37416203), the headline here is COMPLETELY WRONG. It's doubly frustrating given i'm quoted in the article and i spoke to the journalist to try to ensure the "UK drops spy clause" falsehood wasn't propagated. The UK government has changed nothing. All that happened is that a junior minister said "obviously we won't implement this until it's technically feasible", (https://www.reuters.com/technology/uk-minister-says-position-encryption-not-changed-2023-09-07/ https://www.reuters.com/technology/uk-minister-says-position...) which was inexplicably seized on by Signal as evidence that the government was backing down. Cue this nightmarish news cycle of the press declaring "UK drops spy clause" when absolutely nothing has changed: the spy clause is still there, and the govt has explicitly said that they WILL utilise it if they think it necessary (once they consider the tech good enough). So it's incredibly counterproductive to claim this as a victory, and thus cause complacency, and distract from the fact that today more than ever we need to be putting the pressure on to get the clause dropped. It almost feels like a misinfo campaign: what better way to win a battle than to let the other side think they've already won so they sit back and selfcongratulate rather than fight at the critical decisive moment?! Meanwhile folks are misreading the "we didn't back down" coverage as evidence that the government really is about to back down. It's a kafkaesque nightmare!