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Comment by fzfaa | Hacker News Reader

The problem is not what people read, but what they do not read - journalists have an axe to grind against Facebook, so they write titles that make it sound like Facebook willingly gave the data to the police, and most people don't go beyond reading the title.

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What makes you say journalists have an axe to grind against Facebook? If anything, I think they spent more than a decade being too generous to Facebook, and even now are overly credulous a lot of the time.

Facebook was a media darling until they became profitable and ate the media’s lunch. When it became clear that FB would swallow a large chunk of online ad dollars that the media companies coveted, their attitude changed rather suddenly.

They did willingly give the data to the police. Compare Apple v. FBI. "But the iPhone was encrypted" - nothing is stopping Facebook from encrypting Messenger.

That's right, nothing is stopping them. In fact, they've already done it. Messenger supports e2ee.

Whether you think Facebook is right or not, this story gives pause about what kind of information you share online. It's one more reason to participate less or not participate at all in these services.

That seems a good thing, as it will tarnish Facebook both with beeing bad and with being involved in the abortion issue, which is super division no matter what.

And it is not like Facebook doesn't have options here. They can fight the warrant and they can publish the private information of the people involved with the warrant.

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