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Comment by MilnerRoute | Hacker News Reader

I'm still really surprised. Surprised that a prosecution happened for a 17-year-old girl. And that Facebook gave that 17-year-old girl's private messages to the police to facilitate that prosecution.

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I disagree with the entire idea of prosecution here, I think it's wrong, but I think we should recognize that Facebook was served with a lawful warrant for data here - surely we want facebook to obey the law in the countries they operate, and if a warrant is presented they should comply?

Yes, Facebook had to comply and because Facebook doesn't implement end-to-end encryption so that they can data mine their users' chat they had to provide the details. They could alternatively implement end-to-end encryption to protect themselves and their users from these warrants. Something like Signal where the service doesn't know what the messages are that are being sent between users so warrants for seizing that data have no impact on the users' privacy.

Yes, and E2EE was rolled out in 2016 to Messenger, and then was planned to be the default until regulators and NCMEC started screaming about CSAM, and rightly so. It's lose lose.

https://www.theverge.com/2022/1/27/22904650/meta-facebook-me...

> Facebook doesn't implement end-to-end encryption

This is, literally, a lie. Both messenger and WhatsApp have e2ee implemented.

Maybe. Have you checked the new Web Whatsapp, it can work without your phone being on.

So this is not clear cut now.

> Surprised that a prosecution happened for a 17-year-old girl.

Yes, this is a total waste. Is this making the world a better place?

> And that Facebook gave that 17-year-old girl's private messages to the police to facilitate that prosecution.

I'm not surprised that Facebook complied with a lawfully issued search warrant.

The US justice system isn't about reformation or improving the country. It's a system designed to mete out punishment and revenge.

It is both deeply tragic and entirely typical that a case like this is progressing in the US.

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