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Many will cheer for any case that hurts Meta without reading the details, but we should be aware that these cases are one of the key reasons why companies are b

Many will cheer for any case that hurts Meta without reading the details, but we should be aware that these cases are one of the key reasons why companies are backtracking from features like end-to-end encryption: > The New Mexico case also raised concerns that allowing teens to use end-to-end encryption on Instagram chats — a privacy measure that blocks anyone other than sender and receiver from viewing a conversation — could make it harder for law enforcement to catch predators. Midway through trial, Meta said it would stop supporting end-to-end-encrypted messaging on Instagram later this year. The New York case has explicitly gone after their support of end-to-end encryption as a target: https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/meta-executive-warned-facebook-messenger-encryption-plan-was-so-irresponsible-2026-02-24/ https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/meta-executive-warn...

bitwize 8mo ago
The Clipper chip is coming back.
- pyuser583 8mo ago
  How is the Clipper chip different from what online platforms claim have: a curated kids only section?
  - bitwize 8mo ago
    In the mid-90s the US government proposed that Clipper be used as the universal encryption standard for secure electronic communications in the civilian realm, all other cryptosystems being presumably forbidden. It was based on the idea of key escrow: that all Clipper keys be held in an archive and law enforcement could recover a copy of the encryption key for any given Clipper chip upon providing legitimate authorization to intercept communications. However, the Skipjack protocol used by the chip was buggy and insecure, and consumer CPUs became powerful enough that military-grade encryption was practical in software, rendering Clipper moot. A series of First Amendment rulings protected the proliferation of such software cryptosystems under the rubric that computer program code was protected speech. The Meta ruling gives the government an effective stick, First Amendment notwithstanding: if you facilitate communication that the government cannot break into, and someone abuses a child with help from your secure platform, you could be liable for contributing to the abuse of that child. A safe harbor from liability will be provided—by adopting key escrow based encryption (if you support encryption at all). This does not interfere with protected speech about cryptosystems, but it makes using cryptosystems difficult in practice due to the chilling effects.
    - pyuser583 8mo ago
      I’m so sorry, I confused the Clipper Chip with the V-Chip. The 1990s were interesting times.
gzread 8mo ago
Is it illegal or is it just illegal on general purpose platforms whose focus isn't extreme security? We all know Meta can still read E2EE chats (otherwise they wouldn't do it) and they're using E2EE as an excuse to avoid liability for the things their platform encourages. Contrast this with something like Signal where the entire point is to be secure.
- cristoperb 8mo ago
  > We all know Meta can still read E2EE chats That can't be true, otherwise in what sense is it E2EE?
  - gzread 8mo ago
    In the sense that calling it E2EE gives people a warm fuzzy feeling and makes people send more sensitive information over the platform. Has anyone actually audited it?
    - babelfish 8mo ago
      Probably their auditors? Lying about this would be tantamount to (very serious) securities fraud. Not sure what you're basing on your allegations on besides "trust me bro"
      - Supermancho 8mo ago
        [dead]
      - gzread 8mo ago
        Why would lying about having E2EE be securities (as in stock market) fraud? Would that make any lie ever told by a corporation equate to stock market fraud?
        babelfish 8mo ago
        Yes! As Matt Levine says, “everything is securities fraud”
themafia 8mo ago
> Many will cheer for any case that hurts Meta Absolutely. Particularly where they've been found to be guilty. > but we should be aware that these cases are one of the key reasons why companies are backtracking from features like end-to-end encryption Why _social media_ companies are backtracking. I'm extremely nonplussed by this outcome. > concerns that allowing teens Yes, because that's what we all had in mind when considering the victims and perpetrators of these crimes.
pylua 8mo ago
I’m actually okay with not letting under age people use e2e. I’m not okay with blocking everyone. I have 2 kids.
- fourside 8mo ago
  I understand the concern but then to make this available for adults you now have to provide proof of age to companies, which opens up another can of privacy worms.
  - skybrian 8mo ago
    Theoretically we don't actually need proof of age. Websites need to know when the user is attempting to create an account or log in from a child-locked device. Parents need to make sure their kids only have child-locked devices. Vendors need to make sure they don't sell unlocked devices to kids.
    - polyomino 8mo ago
      Children do not want child locked devices and they will find alternatives
      - skybrian 8mo ago
        True, it's never going to be 100%, but at least it's a tractable problem for parents. Enough to change what the culture considers "normal," anyway.
      - sixsevenrot 8mo ago
        As with smoking, alcohol, sex, drugs etc Children who are smart enough to get access to a given vice without getting caught are more likely to be mature enough to be able to cope with that vice.
        cr125rider 8mo ago
        I think we’re going to see how that plays out with gambling. It seems a bit silly to think security abstinence is the solution.
mjevans 8mo ago
The correct nuance here is... * Classifying accounts as child accounts (moderated by a parent) * Allowing account moderators to review content in the account that is moderated (including assigning other moderation tools of choice) In call cases transparency and enabling consumer choice should be the core focus. Additionally: by default treat everyone online as an adult. Parents that allow their kids online like that without supervision / some setting that the user agent is operated by a child intend to allow their children to interact with strangers. This tends to work out better in more controlled and limited circumstances where the adults involved have the resources to provide suitable supervision. At the same time, any requirements should apply only to commercial products. Community (gratis / not for profit) efforts presumably reflect the needs of a given community.
- ilovecake1984 8mo ago
  I don’t agree we should Treat everyone as an adult by default online. We wouldn’t do that in any other circumstances.
  - rockskon 8mo ago
    And the only reason it is permissible to presumptively treat people as underage until proven otherwise in the physical world is that there isn't a constellation of intermediaries collecting all your habits and preferences when you buy porno magazines or alcohol in person. Why is the answer people seem to arrive at being "mandatory collection of blackmail material that will ruin careers and relationships" when it comes to the Internet?
    - lynx97 8mo ago
      Because "somebody has to think of the children." At this point, I am convinced parental instincts are being abused to slowly but surely install more-or-less complete public surveilance. Its a rather obvious approach. You have to appeal to something emotional. And parents, and their apparent unwillingness to take up responsibility for their parenting, are the perfect target. Even child-less adults will chime in to toot the "Somebody has to think of the children" mantra.
ronsor 8mo ago
This is the core issue. We know that this isn't really going to reduce harm for children, we know Meta is not seriously going to suffer or change, and we know this is going to be used as a cudgel to beat down privacy and increase surveillance.
- armada651 8mo ago
  Why is it so important that kids have access to the internet anyway that we're willing to sacrifice both our privacy and freedom of speech rights for it when we already know it's damaging their mental health? We don't need all this privacy invasion if we just didn't give kids a smartphone with a data plan.
  - watwut 8mo ago
    School basically requires them to have one. So.
    - armada651 8mo ago
      On school computers maybe, but not on their smartphones. If schools actually require kids to have their own computer with internet then that's quite simple to fix by enacting new rules. That's important for access to education as well for kids from low-income families.
bdangubic 8mo ago
This is a good thing for “social” media. If you use any social media app (especially those owned by Meta) you should assume that absolutely everything you do is for full public consumption. Maybe these changes will make everyone stop thinking that anything is private when using “social” media apps.
intended 8mo ago
Rock meet hard place? Harm to kids is actually happening, and this is always going to be a hot button topic. E2E is critical for our current ability to communicate online, but will be a lower priority when pitted against child safety. Fighting the good fight is one thing, fighting for the sake of it, without a plan that addresses the tactical reality is another altogether. Personally, I think E2E will be defended, but it’s becoming a lightning rod for attention. As if removing encryption will solve the emerging issues. I suspect providing alternatives to champion, such as privacy preserving ways to verify age, will force a conversation on why E2E needs to go.
lrvick 8mo ago
Centralized organizations with proprietary software can never offer meaningful end to end encryption because they can just ship an app update to disable or backdoor it at any time. It is better for them to be forced to turn off the security theater so people that need actual privacy can research alternatives.
- the_mar 8mo ago
  well, name an example of a thing that can never change then. "research alternatives" meaning what exactly? You think open source is somehow not susceptible to the same issue, plus all of the malicious updates?
  - lrvick 8mo ago
    Security focused FOSS does signed commits, signed reviews, full source bootstrapping, and reproducible builds. Proprietary software solutions are unable come close to that level of accountability. Not all published source code is secure but all secure software has published source code.
jdubs1984 8mo ago
The lawyers using the finding badly internally doesn’t mean the finding was fundamentally unsound and or won’t ultimately be a positive thing.
benreesman 8mo ago
[dead]
cineticdaffodil 8mo ago
Only accounts that exist 14 year plus are elligible for e2e?
- AnthonyMouse 8mo ago
  So a new service can't offer E2EE for 14 years? Also, so an aspiring pedo who gets a job at the service can now read the messages of all the underaged kids?
casey2 8mo ago
It's illegal to hand a minor harmful material. Meta did exactly that. I support people's rights to make and buy sports cars, But it is illegal to hand the keys to a minor and leave them unsupervised.
- xigoi 8mo ago
  If someone sends a child a dick pic by physical mail, is the post company responsible?
  - casey2 7mo ago
    If that someone is the post company, yes. The harmful material in this case is the E2E chat software.
    - xigoi 7mo ago
      The lawsuit is about child predators being able to send children harmful material over Messenger, not about Messenger itself being harmful.
gmerc 8mo ago
No. Meta is backtracking because the business case for and to end encryption is gone. They willingly will give the Trump administration whatever the want because they are not in the business of fighting authoritarian governments, they are in the virtue signalling business when governments are constrained by the rule of law. The business case was to be able to say “we don’t know”. That case is gone.
red_admiral 8mo ago
> (my emphasis) Meta said it would stop supporting end-to-end-encrypted messaging on Instagram later this year. Whatsapp and messenger are still fine, then.
2OEH8eoCRo0 8mo ago
However did we survive all of these years with unencrypted SMS or voice calls?!
true_religion 8mo ago
As a platform operator I think end to end encryption does no good in free products. It just makes you blamed for liability that you couldn’t foreseen or mitigate.

bitwize 8mo ago

The Clipper chip is coming back.

pyuser583 8mo ago
How is the Clipper chip different from what online platforms claim have: a curated kids only section?
- bitwize 8mo ago
  In the mid-90s the US government proposed that Clipper be used as the universal encryption standard for secure electronic communications in the civilian realm, all other cryptosystems being presumably forbidden. It was based on the idea of key escrow: that all Clipper keys be held in an archive and law enforcement could recover a copy of the encryption key for any given Clipper chip upon providing legitimate authorization to intercept communications. However, the Skipjack protocol used by the chip was buggy and insecure, and consumer CPUs became powerful enough that military-grade encryption was practical in software, rendering Clipper moot. A series of First Amendment rulings protected the proliferation of such software cryptosystems under the rubric that computer program code was protected speech. The Meta ruling gives the government an effective stick, First Amendment notwithstanding: if you facilitate communication that the government cannot break into, and someone abuses a child with help from your secure platform, you could be liable for contributing to the abuse of that child. A safe harbor from liability will be provided—by adopting key escrow based encryption (if you support encryption at all). This does not interfere with protected speech about cryptosystems, but it makes using cryptosystems difficult in practice due to the chilling effects.
  - pyuser583 8mo ago
    I’m so sorry, I confused the Clipper Chip with the V-Chip. The 1990s were interesting times.

gzread 8mo ago

Is it illegal or is it just illegal on general purpose platforms whose focus isn't extreme security? We all know Meta can still read E2EE chats (otherwise they wouldn't do it) and they're using E2EE as an excuse to avoid liability for the things their platform encourages. Contrast this with something like Signal where the entire point is to be secure.

cristoperb 8mo ago
> We all know Meta can still read E2EE chats That can't be true, otherwise in what sense is it E2EE?
- gzread 8mo ago
  In the sense that calling it E2EE gives people a warm fuzzy feeling and makes people send more sensitive information over the platform. Has anyone actually audited it?
  - babelfish 8mo ago
    Probably their auditors? Lying about this would be tantamount to (very serious) securities fraud. Not sure what you're basing on your allegations on besides "trust me bro"
    - Supermancho 8mo ago
      [dead]
    - gzread 8mo ago
      Why would lying about having E2EE be securities (as in stock market) fraud? Would that make any lie ever told by a corporation equate to stock market fraud?
      - babelfish 8mo ago
        Yes! As Matt Levine says, “everything is securities fraud”

themafia 8mo ago

> Many will cheer for any case that hurts Meta Absolutely. Particularly where they've been found to be guilty. > but we should be aware that these cases are one of the key reasons why companies are backtracking from features like end-to-end encryption Why _social media_ companies are backtracking. I'm extremely nonplussed by this outcome. > concerns that allowing teens Yes, because that's what we all had in mind when considering the victims and perpetrators of these crimes.

pylua 8mo ago

I’m actually okay with not letting under age people use e2e. I’m not okay with blocking everyone. I have 2 kids.

fourside 8mo ago
I understand the concern but then to make this available for adults you now have to provide proof of age to companies, which opens up another can of privacy worms.
- skybrian 8mo ago
  Theoretically we don't actually need proof of age. Websites need to know when the user is attempting to create an account or log in from a child-locked device. Parents need to make sure their kids only have child-locked devices. Vendors need to make sure they don't sell unlocked devices to kids.
  - polyomino 8mo ago
    Children do not want child locked devices and they will find alternatives
    - skybrian 8mo ago
      True, it's never going to be 100%, but at least it's a tractable problem for parents. Enough to change what the culture considers "normal," anyway.
    - sixsevenrot 8mo ago
      As with smoking, alcohol, sex, drugs etc Children who are smart enough to get access to a given vice without getting caught are more likely to be mature enough to be able to cope with that vice.
      - cr125rider 8mo ago
        I think we’re going to see how that plays out with gambling. It seems a bit silly to think security abstinence is the solution.

mjevans 8mo ago

The correct nuance here is... * Classifying accounts as child accounts (moderated by a parent) * Allowing account moderators to review content in the account that is moderated (including assigning other moderation tools of choice) In call cases transparency and enabling consumer choice should be the core focus. Additionally: by default treat everyone online as an adult. Parents that allow their kids online like that without supervision / some setting that the user agent is operated by a child intend to allow their children to interact with strangers. This tends to work out better in more controlled and limited circumstances where the adults involved have the resources to provide suitable supervision. At the same time, any requirements should apply only to commercial products. Community (gratis / not for profit) efforts presumably reflect the needs of a given community.

ilovecake1984 8mo ago
I don’t agree we should Treat everyone as an adult by default online. We wouldn’t do that in any other circumstances.
- rockskon 8mo ago
  And the only reason it is permissible to presumptively treat people as underage until proven otherwise in the physical world is that there isn't a constellation of intermediaries collecting all your habits and preferences when you buy porno magazines or alcohol in person. Why is the answer people seem to arrive at being "mandatory collection of blackmail material that will ruin careers and relationships" when it comes to the Internet?
  - lynx97 8mo ago
    Because "somebody has to think of the children." At this point, I am convinced parental instincts are being abused to slowly but surely install more-or-less complete public surveilance. Its a rather obvious approach. You have to appeal to something emotional. And parents, and their apparent unwillingness to take up responsibility for their parenting, are the perfect target. Even child-less adults will chime in to toot the "Somebody has to think of the children" mantra.

ronsor 8mo ago

This is the core issue. We know that this isn't really going to reduce harm for children, we know Meta is not seriously going to suffer or change, and we know this is going to be used as a cudgel to beat down privacy and increase surveillance.

armada651 8mo ago
Why is it so important that kids have access to the internet anyway that we're willing to sacrifice both our privacy and freedom of speech rights for it when we already know it's damaging their mental health? We don't need all this privacy invasion if we just didn't give kids a smartphone with a data plan.
- watwut 8mo ago
  School basically requires them to have one. So.
  - armada651 8mo ago
    On school computers maybe, but not on their smartphones. If schools actually require kids to have their own computer with internet then that's quite simple to fix by enacting new rules. That's important for access to education as well for kids from low-income families.

bdangubic 8mo ago

This is a good thing for “social” media. If you use any social media app (especially those owned by Meta) you should assume that absolutely everything you do is for full public consumption. Maybe these changes will make everyone stop thinking that anything is private when using “social” media apps.

intended 8mo ago

Rock meet hard place? Harm to kids is actually happening, and this is always going to be a hot button topic. E2E is critical for our current ability to communicate online, but will be a lower priority when pitted against child safety. Fighting the good fight is one thing, fighting for the sake of it, without a plan that addresses the tactical reality is another altogether. Personally, I think E2E will be defended, but it’s becoming a lightning rod for attention. As if removing encryption will solve the emerging issues. I suspect providing alternatives to champion, such as privacy preserving ways to verify age, will force a conversation on why E2E needs to go.

lrvick 8mo ago

Centralized organizations with proprietary software can never offer meaningful end to end encryption because they can just ship an app update to disable or backdoor it at any time. It is better for them to be forced to turn off the security theater so people that need actual privacy can research alternatives.

the_mar 8mo ago
well, name an example of a thing that can never change then. "research alternatives" meaning what exactly? You think open source is somehow not susceptible to the same issue, plus all of the malicious updates?
- lrvick 8mo ago
  Security focused FOSS does signed commits, signed reviews, full source bootstrapping, and reproducible builds. Proprietary software solutions are unable come close to that level of accountability. Not all published source code is secure but all secure software has published source code.

jdubs1984 8mo ago

The lawyers using the finding badly internally doesn’t mean the finding was fundamentally unsound and or won’t ultimately be a positive thing.

benreesman 8mo ago

[dead]

cineticdaffodil 8mo ago

Only accounts that exist 14 year plus are elligible for e2e?

AnthonyMouse 8mo ago
So a new service can't offer E2EE for 14 years? Also, so an aspiring pedo who gets a job at the service can now read the messages of all the underaged kids?

casey2 8mo ago

It's illegal to hand a minor harmful material. Meta did exactly that. I support people's rights to make and buy sports cars, But it is illegal to hand the keys to a minor and leave them unsupervised.

xigoi 8mo ago
If someone sends a child a dick pic by physical mail, is the post company responsible?
- casey2 7mo ago
  If that someone is the post company, yes. The harmful material in this case is the E2E chat software.
  - xigoi 7mo ago
    The lawsuit is about child predators being able to send children harmful material over Messenger, not about Messenger itself being harmful.

gmerc 8mo ago

No. Meta is backtracking because the business case for and to end encryption is gone. They willingly will give the Trump administration whatever the want because they are not in the business of fighting authoritarian governments, they are in the virtue signalling business when governments are constrained by the rule of law. The business case was to be able to say “we don’t know”. That case is gone.

red_admiral 8mo ago

> (my emphasis) Meta said it would stop supporting end-to-end-encrypted messaging on Instagram later this year. Whatsapp and messenger are still fine, then.

2OEH8eoCRo0 8mo ago

However did we survive all of these years with unencrypted SMS or voice calls?!

true_religion 8mo ago

As a platform operator I think end to end encryption does no good in free products. It just makes you blamed for liability that you couldn’t foreseen or mitigate.