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Child safety advocates disrupt Apple developers conference

21 points by alwillis 2y ago

talldayo 2y ago
> “We’re trying to engage in a dialog with Apple to implement these changes,” she said Monday. “They don’t feel like these are necessary actions.” I'm trying my hardest to not assume this person is an industry plant, but... didn't we all arrive at the consensus that local iCloud scanning is a dangerous political Rubicon to cross? It doesn't make sense why someone would advocate for this feature without also addressing the security and privacy concerns that (supposedly) made Apple drop it entirely. Their demands are just bringing us back to square-one and repeating the same tautology that failed to prove the feature's worth in the first place.
- rad_gruchalski 2y ago
  > didn't we all arrive at the consensus that local iCloud scanning is a dangerous political Rubicon to cross? We did but these people aren't interested in the privacy aspect, just scanning. Our privacy is their enemy. "Not our problem". > It doesn't make sense why someone would advocate for this It makes sense when you consider that their motivations may be different from the publicly projected image.
  - Zak 2y ago
    It may still make sense if they're honest about their goals. It's not rare to find people advocating for policies in other fields that have high costs to society the advocates simply don't value as highly as the issue they're advocating. I imagine some people, including these advocates would find my opposing position that no crime can justify mass surveillance nonsensical.
  - whstl 2y ago
    > We did but these people aren't interested in the privacy aspect, just scanning And some "activists", like Ashton Kutcher, are interested in making money out of this, via his startup, Thorn. EDIT: And, to absolutely nobody's surprise, the CEO of this group is a former VP of Ashton Kutcher's Thorn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarah-gardner-aba90013/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarah-gardner-aba90013/
    - itishappy 2y ago
      > Sarah previously spent 10 years at Thorn > Prior to the Heat Initiative, [Lily] worked alongside Sarah as her Chief of Staff at Thorn. > Prior to the Heat Initiative, Brooke spent the last 9 years as a strategy, programs, and operations executive at Thorn... Their community manager is the only one with no stated connection to Thorn. https://protectchildrennotabuse.org/about-us https://protectchildrennotabuse.org/about-us
- beardyw 2y ago
  > It doesn't make sense why someone would advocate for this feature without also addressing the security and privacy concerns that (supposedly) made Apple drop it entirely. It doesn't make sense to you. Very, very many people don't care about security. Honestly outside of tech it astounds me how unconcerned most people are. But they are concerned about sharing of stuff you or I would also recoil from. They care about that, not security.
  - lovethevoid 2y ago
    They don’t care about “security”, they do care about their credit cards being used by thieves due to a data breach. Which is security and privacy, but they don’t care about either as labels.
    - beardyw 2y ago
      There is a real disconnect between "I use the same password everywhere" and "my account was hacked".
  - SirMaster 2y ago
    If they grew up their whole life not caring about security, and they never perceived any issue in their life due to a security issue, then is it so hard to believe or understand why they don't care about security? (I am just agreeing with your comment)
- hooverd 2y ago
  Of course the people demanding this don't care or know about the security and privacy concerns, they're NPIC fat cats moving from one bloated org to the next. Zero experience or expertise other than setting non-profit donations on fire.
- wonderwonder 2y ago
  If you look at most protests lately there is no nuance. They embrace a single view point absolutely to the point of not even considering any others or admitting that perhaps the issue is complex. They are the target for the political ads and talking points that seize on a single point and use it like a cudgel against the opposition. The worst part is so many of those at protests have only a limited understanding of the issue they are protesting against. Perhaps that's how its always been but social media has just made it more glaringly frustrating.
  - zer00eyz 2y ago
    > If you look at most protests lately there is no nuance. They embrace a single view point absolutely to the point of not even considering any others or admitting that perhaps the issue is complex. You're being far too nice. Monocultures. Facile arguments. Stupid people. Hey, if you want the government accessing your phone, then you should pack up and go to china.
    - wonderwonder 2y ago
      I think its more than that. Some of the our supposedly smartest youth at our Ivy leagues are acting in this manner. I think its the same reason people join cults. Lack of friends, the need to belong, an general emptiness inside. Political movements prey on these people. Overall though, I do think you are right, once they join these groups they want to keep their friends and sense of belonging so they are willing to discard any critical thinking or common sense. I think its sad overall.
      - zer00eyz 2y ago
        > cults So many people cut off their family members based on political identity in the last 8 years. You're free to do that. But cutting off people who aren't "in" your group is one of the signs of a cult. Scientology is even OVERT about this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disconnection_(Scientology) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disconnection_(Scientology)
- colonelmachine 2y ago
  > I'm trying my hardest to not assume this person is an industry plant 'The Heat Initiative' has been linked to political dark money: https://theintercept.com/2023/10/01/apple-encryption-iphone-heat-initiative/ https://theintercept.com/2023/10/01/apple-encryption-iphone-...
  - whstl 2y ago
    The CEO of Heat Initiative is a former VP of Thorn, a startup founded by Ashton Kutcher that sells scanning technology, and wants to land Apple and other big techs as customers. https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarah-gardner-aba90013/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarah-gardner-aba90013/
- itishappy 2y ago
  > I'm trying my hardest to not assume this person is an industry plant... This group is an industry plant. Check out the prior work experience of the majority of Heat Initiative's leadership team: https://protectchildrennotabuse.org/about-us/ https://protectchildrennotabuse.org/about-us/
llmblockchain 2y ago
35 protestors? Only 33 were planted from government agencies.
RIMR 2y ago
This is such an insidious movement. It has nothing to do with child safety. The ~35 people that showed up here are nothing more than useful idiots for surveillance lobbyists, if not planted there by the lobbyists themselves. The entire "Apple won't protect children" narrative pivots around Apple's decision to back away from their earlier misguided plan to monitor iCloud accounts for CSAM and alert the authorities to offenders. Privacy advocates correctly pointed out that if Apple can scan your iCloud account for CSAM on behalf of the government, Apple can scan your iCloud account for anything on behalf of the government. Given Apple's privacy-centered marketing, the entire plan was dead-in-the-water from a customer trust perspective. But a small subset of mostly right-wing reactionaries have decided that this is another moral failure of big tech, and are demanding that Apple "stand up to pedophiles" by tearing down user privacy. It's a complete non-issue, because people who deal in CSAM are generally never going to store their contraband on cloud services, and even if they are careless enough to do so, iCloud isn't really the service to use if you intend to distribute this material. At the end of the day, people are demanding that their own right to privacy be torn down just so that we can expose a small subset of harmful people that were never meaningfully enabled or empowered by Apple in the commission of their crimes. And the loudest voices here are coming from a deep bias against "big tech", where they paradoxically demand that these companies be held accountable, not by restricting them, but by demanding that they exert authority against their user base...
- bgentry 2y ago
  > But a small subset of mostly right-wing reactionaries If you look at the photo of the protestors in the article or research the groups stated to be involved, it seems pretty unlikely that these individuals are "right-wing". There is a contingent in support of this that is likely more conservative by way of being law enforcement aligned, but there are also other segments in support of these measures that have very different motivations. I am not one of these people FWIW—I think opaque on-device scanning is a clear and unacceptable invasion of personal privacy.
  - RIMR 2y ago
    I don't accept your "just look at them" photo analysis to be any real indicator of the political leanings of the movement, especially not when these people appear to be the few opportunists in the Cupertino area who physically showed up. I will instead rely on tangible data that that suggests that these kinds of causes are propelled largely due to right-wing reactionary politics and the moral panics they cultivate. In the United States at least, the MAGA right tends to be rather obsessed with pedophilia and child sex abuse, and use it as a cudgel to attack any politician, business, or group of people they don't like. They call Joe Biden a pedophile, and use photoshopped images to suggest that he has a penchant for touching children. It's not true, and his dishonest accusers are the ones photoshopping children into implied sexual situations, but the lie persists because it is useful They call Transgender people pedophiles and "groomers", and suggest that they should be forced from public life and treated like criminals, being denied any job that might put them in contact with a child. There is no evidence that queer people are any more likely than the general public to engage in child sex abuse, but the lie persists because it is useful. They even managed to stir themselves into a frenzy with the claim that a pizza restaurant in D.C. that was popular with members of the Obama administration was actually a front for a child sex trafficking ring masterminded by Hillary Clinton. There's absolutely zero evidence for any of that, but the lie persists because it is useful. While there are definitely people that fall for this propaganda that aren't right-wing, right-wingers make the perfect useful idiot for this kind of cause. The people at the top of the chain. The people who made those professional looking signs. The people who run the OSEAC. They are predominately right-wing, and have political goals that are far divorced from any notion of "protecting children". As a general rule of thumb, in America, if there is any group of people trying to convince you to give up your rights and freedoms because children are in danger, if you follow the breadcrumbs, you'll find Republicans in charge. On a side note, for an or that wants to fight back against the exploitation of children, the Heat Initiative having a website covered with AI-generated images of children is horrible optics, given how Generative AI has become a focus on CSAM creation.
m3kw9 2y ago
Asking Apple to censor people’s phone? Let’s scan your phone for stuff we don’t like. If you are a child abuser the cops should take you away not apple
maxwell 2y ago
Demanding surveillance and censorship for safety and the children.
footlose_3815 2y ago
This is more of "Would someone please think of the children" fallacy in-action. This was already thoroughly discussed, and the consensus was that privacy needed to prevail. You can either have privacy, or you can open the doors to invasive content-scanning. If you let them scan for one illegal thing, that opens the doors for them to scan for anything they want. Examples of how this could slope down: * Oh, you took 30 seconds of video at the Taylor Swift show? Since we let governments scan your private data, we're now compelled to forward your PII to the RIAA. * You have Metallica mp3s from 2001? Since we let governments scan your private data, we're now compelled to forward your PII to their lawyers. * EXIF data shows were driving on private property? Since we let governments scan your private data, we're now compelled to forward your PII to the township.
- gs17 2y ago
  If only someone would think of the childrens' privacy.
- radicality 2y ago
  > If you let them scan for one illegal thing, that opens the doors for them to scan for anything they want. Which is exactly what this protest is for, all the “think of the children” is a charade to fight encryption. The protest was organized by Heat Initiative, which is a group funded by private billionaire money, with unknown agenda. More info here: https://theintercept.com/2023/10/01/apple-encryption-iphone-heat-initiative/ https://theintercept.com/2023/10/01/apple-encryption-iphone-...
  - itishappy 2y ago
    > with unknown agenda. They make it pretty clear. Check the prior roles of the leadership team: https://protectchildrennotabuse.org/about-us/ https://protectchildrennotabuse.org/about-us/
basslight 2y ago
[flagged]
- llmblockchain 2y ago
  [flagged]
hbn 2y ago
Govern me harder! I need every purchase I make to be snooping on me! Think of the children!
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
pseudalopex 2y ago
Calling them child safety advocates is deferential. They advocate policies they believe will reduce child sexual abuse. They ignore the dangers of these policies. And they reject any opposing evidence.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

21 points by alwillis 2y ago

> “We’re trying to engage in a dialog with Apple to implement these changes,” she said Monday. “They don’t feel like these are necessary actions.” I'm trying my hardest to not assume this person is an industry plant, but... didn't we all arrive at the consensus that local iCloud scanning is a dangerous political Rubicon to cross? It doesn't make sense why someone would advocate for this feature without also addressing the security and privacy concerns that (supposedly) made Apple drop it entirely. Their demands are just bringing us back to square-one and repeating the same tautology that failed to prove the feature's worth in the first place.

rad_gruchalski 2y ago
> didn't we all arrive at the consensus that local iCloud scanning is a dangerous political Rubicon to cross? We did but these people aren't interested in the privacy aspect, just scanning. Our privacy is their enemy. "Not our problem". > It doesn't make sense why someone would advocate for this It makes sense when you consider that their motivations may be different from the publicly projected image.
- Zak 2y ago
  It may still make sense if they're honest about their goals. It's not rare to find people advocating for policies in other fields that have high costs to society the advocates simply don't value as highly as the issue they're advocating. I imagine some people, including these advocates would find my opposing position that no crime can justify mass surveillance nonsensical.
- whstl 2y ago
  > We did but these people aren't interested in the privacy aspect, just scanning And some "activists", like Ashton Kutcher, are interested in making money out of this, via his startup, Thorn. EDIT: And, to absolutely nobody's surprise, the CEO of this group is a former VP of Ashton Kutcher's Thorn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarah-gardner-aba90013/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarah-gardner-aba90013/
  - itishappy 2y ago
    > Sarah previously spent 10 years at Thorn > Prior to the Heat Initiative, [Lily] worked alongside Sarah as her Chief of Staff at Thorn. > Prior to the Heat Initiative, Brooke spent the last 9 years as a strategy, programs, and operations executive at Thorn... Their community manager is the only one with no stated connection to Thorn. https://protectchildrennotabuse.org/about-us https://protectchildrennotabuse.org/about-us
beardyw 2y ago
> It doesn't make sense why someone would advocate for this feature without also addressing the security and privacy concerns that (supposedly) made Apple drop it entirely. It doesn't make sense to you. Very, very many people don't care about security. Honestly outside of tech it astounds me how unconcerned most people are. But they are concerned about sharing of stuff you or I would also recoil from. They care about that, not security.
- lovethevoid 2y ago
  They don’t care about “security”, they do care about their credit cards being used by thieves due to a data breach. Which is security and privacy, but they don’t care about either as labels.
  - beardyw 2y ago
    There is a real disconnect between "I use the same password everywhere" and "my account was hacked".
- SirMaster 2y ago
  If they grew up their whole life not caring about security, and they never perceived any issue in their life due to a security issue, then is it so hard to believe or understand why they don't care about security? (I am just agreeing with your comment)
hooverd 2y ago
Of course the people demanding this don't care or know about the security and privacy concerns, they're NPIC fat cats moving from one bloated org to the next. Zero experience or expertise other than setting non-profit donations on fire.
wonderwonder 2y ago
If you look at most protests lately there is no nuance. They embrace a single view point absolutely to the point of not even considering any others or admitting that perhaps the issue is complex. They are the target for the political ads and talking points that seize on a single point and use it like a cudgel against the opposition. The worst part is so many of those at protests have only a limited understanding of the issue they are protesting against. Perhaps that's how its always been but social media has just made it more glaringly frustrating.
- zer00eyz 2y ago
  > If you look at most protests lately there is no nuance. They embrace a single view point absolutely to the point of not even considering any others or admitting that perhaps the issue is complex. You're being far too nice. Monocultures. Facile arguments. Stupid people. Hey, if you want the government accessing your phone, then you should pack up and go to china.
  - wonderwonder 2y ago
    I think its more than that. Some of the our supposedly smartest youth at our Ivy leagues are acting in this manner. I think its the same reason people join cults. Lack of friends, the need to belong, an general emptiness inside. Political movements prey on these people. Overall though, I do think you are right, once they join these groups they want to keep their friends and sense of belonging so they are willing to discard any critical thinking or common sense. I think its sad overall.
    - zer00eyz 2y ago
      > cults So many people cut off their family members based on political identity in the last 8 years. You're free to do that. But cutting off people who aren't "in" your group is one of the signs of a cult. Scientology is even OVERT about this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disconnection_(Scientology) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disconnection_(Scientology)
colonelmachine 2y ago
> I'm trying my hardest to not assume this person is an industry plant 'The Heat Initiative' has been linked to political dark money: https://theintercept.com/2023/10/01/apple-encryption-iphone-heat-initiative/ https://theintercept.com/2023/10/01/apple-encryption-iphone-...
- whstl 2y ago
  The CEO of Heat Initiative is a former VP of Thorn, a startup founded by Ashton Kutcher that sells scanning technology, and wants to land Apple and other big techs as customers. https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarah-gardner-aba90013/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarah-gardner-aba90013/
itishappy 2y ago
> I'm trying my hardest to not assume this person is an industry plant... This group is an industry plant. Check out the prior work experience of the majority of Heat Initiative's leadership team: https://protectchildrennotabuse.org/about-us/ https://protectchildrennotabuse.org/about-us/

llmblockchain 2y ago

35 protestors? Only 33 were planted from government agencies.

RIMR 2y ago

This is such an insidious movement. It has nothing to do with child safety. The ~35 people that showed up here are nothing more than useful idiots for surveillance lobbyists, if not planted there by the lobbyists themselves. The entire "Apple won't protect children" narrative pivots around Apple's decision to back away from their earlier misguided plan to monitor iCloud accounts for CSAM and alert the authorities to offenders. Privacy advocates correctly pointed out that if Apple can scan your iCloud account for CSAM on behalf of the government, Apple can scan your iCloud account for anything on behalf of the government. Given Apple's privacy-centered marketing, the entire plan was dead-in-the-water from a customer trust perspective. But a small subset of mostly right-wing reactionaries have decided that this is another moral failure of big tech, and are demanding that Apple "stand up to pedophiles" by tearing down user privacy. It's a complete non-issue, because people who deal in CSAM are generally never going to store their contraband on cloud services, and even if they are careless enough to do so, iCloud isn't really the service to use if you intend to distribute this material. At the end of the day, people are demanding that their own right to privacy be torn down just so that we can expose a small subset of harmful people that were never meaningfully enabled or empowered by Apple in the commission of their crimes. And the loudest voices here are coming from a deep bias against "big tech", where they paradoxically demand that these companies be held accountable, not by restricting them, but by demanding that they exert authority against their user base...

bgentry 2y ago
> But a small subset of mostly right-wing reactionaries If you look at the photo of the protestors in the article or research the groups stated to be involved, it seems pretty unlikely that these individuals are "right-wing". There is a contingent in support of this that is likely more conservative by way of being law enforcement aligned, but there are also other segments in support of these measures that have very different motivations. I am not one of these people FWIW—I think opaque on-device scanning is a clear and unacceptable invasion of personal privacy.
- RIMR 2y ago
  I don't accept your "just look at them" photo analysis to be any real indicator of the political leanings of the movement, especially not when these people appear to be the few opportunists in the Cupertino area who physically showed up. I will instead rely on tangible data that that suggests that these kinds of causes are propelled largely due to right-wing reactionary politics and the moral panics they cultivate. In the United States at least, the MAGA right tends to be rather obsessed with pedophilia and child sex abuse, and use it as a cudgel to attack any politician, business, or group of people they don't like. They call Joe Biden a pedophile, and use photoshopped images to suggest that he has a penchant for touching children. It's not true, and his dishonest accusers are the ones photoshopping children into implied sexual situations, but the lie persists because it is useful They call Transgender people pedophiles and "groomers", and suggest that they should be forced from public life and treated like criminals, being denied any job that might put them in contact with a child. There is no evidence that queer people are any more likely than the general public to engage in child sex abuse, but the lie persists because it is useful. They even managed to stir themselves into a frenzy with the claim that a pizza restaurant in D.C. that was popular with members of the Obama administration was actually a front for a child sex trafficking ring masterminded by Hillary Clinton. There's absolutely zero evidence for any of that, but the lie persists because it is useful. While there are definitely people that fall for this propaganda that aren't right-wing, right-wingers make the perfect useful idiot for this kind of cause. The people at the top of the chain. The people who made those professional looking signs. The people who run the OSEAC. They are predominately right-wing, and have political goals that are far divorced from any notion of "protecting children". As a general rule of thumb, in America, if there is any group of people trying to convince you to give up your rights and freedoms because children are in danger, if you follow the breadcrumbs, you'll find Republicans in charge. On a side note, for an or that wants to fight back against the exploitation of children, the Heat Initiative having a website covered with AI-generated images of children is horrible optics, given how Generative AI has become a focus on CSAM creation.

m3kw9 2y ago

Asking Apple to censor people’s phone? Let’s scan your phone for stuff we don’t like. If you are a child abuser the cops should take you away not apple

maxwell 2y ago

Demanding surveillance and censorship for safety and the children.

footlose_3815 2y ago

This is more of "Would someone please think of the children" fallacy in-action. This was already thoroughly discussed, and the consensus was that privacy needed to prevail. You can either have privacy, or you can open the doors to invasive content-scanning. If you let them scan for one illegal thing, that opens the doors for them to scan for anything they want. Examples of how this could slope down: * Oh, you took 30 seconds of video at the Taylor Swift show? Since we let governments scan your private data, we're now compelled to forward your PII to the RIAA. * You have Metallica mp3s from 2001? Since we let governments scan your private data, we're now compelled to forward your PII to their lawyers. * EXIF data shows were driving on private property? Since we let governments scan your private data, we're now compelled to forward your PII to the township.

gs17 2y ago
If only someone would think of the childrens' privacy.
radicality 2y ago
> If you let them scan for one illegal thing, that opens the doors for them to scan for anything they want. Which is exactly what this protest is for, all the “think of the children” is a charade to fight encryption. The protest was organized by Heat Initiative, which is a group funded by private billionaire money, with unknown agenda. More info here: https://theintercept.com/2023/10/01/apple-encryption-iphone-heat-initiative/ https://theintercept.com/2023/10/01/apple-encryption-iphone-...
- itishappy 2y ago
  > with unknown agenda. They make it pretty clear. Check the prior roles of the leadership team: https://protectchildrennotabuse.org/about-us/ https://protectchildrennotabuse.org/about-us/

basslight 2y ago

[flagged]

llmblockchain 2y ago
[flagged]

hbn 2y ago

Govern me harder! I need every purchase I make to be snooping on me! Think of the children!

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

pseudalopex 2y ago

Calling them child safety advocates is deferential. They advocate policies they believe will reduce child sexual abuse. They ignore the dangers of these policies. And they reject any opposing evidence.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]