from Hacker News

The Next Web: “Facebook confirms it spies on your Messenger conversations”

by tripu on 4/5/18, 10:41 AM with 1 comments

  • by tripu on 4/5/18, 10:52 AM

    “The lack of oversight on such communication platforms could be harmful. In India, where Facebook-owned WhatsApp counts more than 200 million users on its encrypted messaging service, fake news, political propaganda, and other forms of misinformation frequently spread like wildfire.”

    So what? I hate WhatsApp hoaxes as much as the next person, but compromising privacy is no solution to that. There is crap and misinformation in other media, too (mail, IM apps, blogs, comments), and that does not justify invasions of privacy.

    Is Facebook (or Apple, or Google, or Telegram) going to determine what qualifies as “fake news”, “political propaganda”, and “misinformation”? God help us.

    The way forward is to denounce always stupid chains, to demand sources and URLs for everything, and to educate newbies. Not surveillance.

    This falsely “balanced” paragraph in the article is very dishonest.