Facebook told advertisers it can identify teens feeling 'insecure', 'worthless'

My feeling is that we have entered an age that youth is not naive anymore and would happily pay $3/month (at least in the US) for a non-tracking all-round communication service.

Even if I did, I don't have what it takes to make it popular.

This is incredibly reductive. A non-profit can strive to place human outcomes over financial results, but nothing requires them to, and there are plenty of forces that push them in the other direction as well.

Conversely, for-profit corporations might not strive to place human outcomes over financial results, but nothing prevents them from doing so[0], and some in fact do.

The "non-profit" vs. "for-profit" distinction tells you literally nothing about a company's ethics.

[0] Every time this topic comes up, someone brings up Dodge v. Ford, which (a) is not the most relevant precedent, even in Michigan law; (b) does not actually establish the precedent that people citing it usually thinks it does, even in Michigan law, (c) was soundly rejected in other states shortly after the Michigan decision, and (d) has since been overturned (in the part that is relevant here) in Michigan.

In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if the latter were in actuality the first adopters of cryptography, especially if you include other illegal uses such as copyright violation.

We could easily say that free market dynamics suggest that the cost+benefit will higher for criminals, especially unless and until cryptography becomes ubiquitous. So why not nip it in the bud? That's been the argument coming from the law enforcement and intelligence communities all along.

Yet engineers are defensive and optimistic about the beneficial usages of cryptography. They're dismissive of usages such as the encrypted iPhones used by the San Bernardino terrorists. And they focus on seemingly esoteric benefits--like improved security from extortionists--that most common people overlook or discount.

I tend to _agree_ with those engineers, am similarly defensive and optimistic regarding cryptography, and place a high value on benefits not obvious to others. I think it's worthwhile to be consistent here. Any distinctions one can concoct to differentiate Facebook and their advertisers from, e.g., non-profits, can easily be turned around later.

The emphasis shouldn't be on _presumed_ abuses, guilt by association, etc. It should be on hard data of actual usage and actual outcomes, with attention paid to implicit biases in collection and reporting. We also need to compare this against alternatives, taking into account (and quantifying) the futility of criminalization or regulation, etc.