Internal debate at Meta Platforms over whether to implement higher levels of privacy protections highlighted the long-existing tension between privacy and online safety, particularly over the protection of children from malicious actors.
Internal debate at Meta Platforms over whether to implement higher levels of privacy protections highlighted the long-existing tension between privacy and online safety, particularly over the protection of children from malicious actors.At the trial in the US state of New Mexico concerning the state’s case against Meta over online harms to children, the jury heard concerns raised by child safety employees at Meta when CEO Mark Zuckerberg floated the idea of enabling end-to-end encryption on Meta platforms.
Meta’s grappling with the issue reflects a typical dilemma faced by technology companies who offer services that connect people. On one hand, people want privacy, many living under the fear of being monitored by governments and big corporations, as Meta’s lawyer Leslie Pope suggested. In addition, privacy incidents could do serious reputational damages.
On the other hand, to put a blanket on everything that goes on a platform makes it harder to combat crimes, including terrorism, and to protect vulnerable members of the society, such as children and teens in the current case in New Mexico.
As a jury heard yesterday, Brian Levine, an expert witness for the state, said Meta’s implementation of end-to-end encryption negatively impacted its ability to detect harmful content, including child sexual exploitation, and respond accordingly. “It's an opportunity lost to rescue a child,” he said.
“[W]hat we gain on the side of privacy, we will lose on the side of safety,” Antigone Davis, Meta’s global head of safety, said in an internal message in 2019.
The concerns came after Zuckerberg announced the idea of end-to-end encryption, which sometimes was referred to as e2ee. Meta eventually implemented end-to-end encryption by default for Facebook Messenger in December 2023. On Instagram and Messenger Kids, it’s not by default.
Davis expressed concerns that Meta would lose the support of safety organizations and experts that “have helped us manage so many policymaker and press fires.” “We will lose them. They will abandon us, and they will speak out against us,” she said.
“Honestly, what I’d love is if we did some hardcore research to understand what we need to deliver on the privacy side to get our reputation back — maybe there are other things we could do, most people don’t even understand e2ee,” she said.
Levine, during whose expert testimony these internal discussions surfaced, said end-to-end encryption is a “complicated” and “nuance” issue. “Privacy protections that we provide to adults are not always the best solutions for children. We do different things for children all over for society,” he said. “This is an extreme position to end-to-end encrypt everyone on the platform, [including] children as young as 13,” he said.
In one email, an employee named Brandon was cited saying: “As someone who works on a child safety team, I simply can't bring myself to celebrate this based on our goal to make progress on social issues.” “How do we morally reconcile the undeniable impact E2EE will have on our ability to fight against the severe harm facing our most vulnerable users (child exploitation, terrorism, etc) in favor of messaging privacy that a majority of our users don't appear to be demanding?” it went on.
The policy would hinder law enforcement, which relies on “cyber tips as a legal, authoritative reason” to conduct their investigations.
Another employee named Andrea Saul Nosbusch said Meta’s ability to comply with law enforcement requests “will drastically decrease across the board.” “Groups like ISIS view this messaging system as the most useful for their core operation. Groomers have unfettered access to young people,” she said.
In another message, Nosbusch wrote: “FB allows pedophiles to find each other and kids via social graph with easy transition to Messenger. WA [WhatsApp] does not make it easy to make social connections, meaning making Messenger e2ee will be far, far worse than anything we have seen/gotten a glimpse of on WA.”
During Levine’s cross-examination, the jury asked whether end-to-end encryption requires both sides to opt in. “I believe so,” Levine said.
Pope pointed out that end-to-end encryption is widely used on the Internet, including by Signal and Apple’s iMessage. But Levine said those are not social networks.
“Because they're complex, nuanced issues, some people disagree about how to balance privacy and safety, right?” she suggested to Levine, who agreed.
She pointed out to the jury that Levine, in his early career, focused on developing tools for getting privacy online. “And nowadays you consider the tension between privacy and monitoring content to keep out bad actors and ethical dilemma, right?” she asked. “That's correct,” Levine said.
Please e-mail editors@mlex.com to contact the editorial staff regarding this story, or to submit the names of lawyers and advisers.