Facebook turns over mother and daughter’s chat history to police resulting in abortion charges
theverge.com
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/1874605
A 17-year-old from Nebraska and her mother are facing criminal charges including performing an illegal abortion and concealing a dead body after police obtained the pair’s private chat history from Facebook, court documents published by Motherboard show.
To the people shitting on the idea of a default defederation with Meta, how about we deferedate not because it will affect us as posters but because they are evil pieces of shit?
yeah, the difference is pretty stark:
- Mark Zuckerberg
(yes it sounds like satire but that's a real quote)
The Lemmy DM is imo actually quite important. If I want to get in touch with someone about a post, nothing more. It is an easy option, and serves a purpose. It isn't imo meant to be used for anything else.
yep, it's important that we have this capability, but it's also nice that unlike other platforms that do their best to lock you in, lemmy actively pushes you toward a safer alternative
What's the name of that safer alternative?
Matrix, which is pretty much an encrypted and open-source Discord clone (at least in the same fashion as Lemmy would be a Reddit clone). I personally use Element to interact with it and have a matrix.org account, but Matrix is just like the fediverse, you can choose any instance or client you want, or even host an instance yourself. In your Lemmy settings you can set up your Matrix user, right below your email address as of 0.18.1, and if you do, a new buttons saying "send secure message" will show up on your profile, next to "send message", which will redirect people trying to message you to Matrix.
https://matrix.org/
I mean I agree with Zuck on that one.
Was it Facebook that killed xmpp or Google? Legitimately asking because I've always seen that blamed on Google.
It was Google, they Embraced, Extended, and Extinguished it with Google Chat. Then they killed that themselves.
google does seem to be the main culprit, but facebook still played a role as far as i'm aware. these two companies also colluded a lot so i wouldn't trust either of them with anything federated
Yeah they can both get fucked. Cheers
This was Google/Alphabet.
How on earth did Meta kill XMPP, where is that even from lol. They didn't even have a standalone messaging app until 2011, which is after Google Talk dropped support for XMPP.
Some game-of-telephone misinformation originating from this article - though it has gone from Google killed it (which this article states), to it was a protocol that allowed Facebook and Google to communicate and then got killed, to Facebook killed it.
I don't even agree that Google killed it, because it's simply a messaging protocol, it doesn't "die". Maybe you could try to argue that Google killed Jabber, but I used Jabber back in the early 00s, pretty much nobody else did lol, almost all IM communication was done over MSN Messenger. Google Talk brought XMPP "users" and they left when Google sunsetted Talk in favour of Hangouts. Facebook Messenger used XMPP for a time, so if anything they "revived" it (they didn't, it was never dead), but, like all the other messaging apps, they moved to their own proprietary version to add their own features.
This is what XMPP was actually designed for, the X literally means "eXtensible", whether it's extended open source or into proprietary versions.
I feel like there's a lot of anti-tech misinformation on Lemmy and it's great to be skeptical, but honestly I think we waste a ton of time being easily ragebait'd into the wrong shit.
Discord killed Compuserve!
Video killed the radio star!
You bastards!
my understanding was that while google is the main culprit, facebook and google both played a big part in killing it. but since we're discussing meta/facebook here, and they're not blameless, i focused on that.
but yeah, fuck google too.
I think we should try to do better here and provide actual reasoning to our statements instead of unbridled rage, regardless of the topic, because this isn't valuable content. I work in an adjacent industry and I believe that a lot of what people have said lately about this topic is overly sensationalized and I don't mind discussing it, but "fuck Meta/Google because they're evil" is subjective as hell and gets us nowhere except back to Reddit culture.
This discussion pyramid was a good post from the other day:
https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/b48a0a91-c7a3-4cc5-a117-6deceedde205.png
Your comments are "ad hominem" at best.
Saying distrust is an ad hominem is one of the takes ever, lol. And that's what all of this boils down to, trust. Do we trust Meta with not exploiting all of our data, and turning it against us at the earliest opportunity? Do we trust Meta that they want to contribute to the fediverse, and not just hurt it because it's a competitor?
By the same logic, blocking or banning a person instead of vetting every post and comment of theirs would also be an ad hominem. But at the end of the day, it's just practical. Meta has a long and not so proud history of being extremely anti-consumer, and shoving that track record under the rug, trying to absolve them of responsibility and consequences for their actions, under the thought-terminating cliche of an ad hominem is neither productive nor practical.
Yes, people are mad at Meta, and yes, the distrust means their actions are scrutinized more than they otherwise would be, but that doesn't mean that their actions aren't actually massively anti-consumer, and that they aren't a massive liability. In this particular case, you can make the argument that they had a legal obligation to hand over the data, had they not tried to build a walled garden with no privacy they wouldn't have had the data to hand over to begin with.
(also, unrelated: you can embed images using the
syntax, and you can even add alt text in the brackets to help users with screen readers)I think the simpler answer is more likely to be correct. The Fediverse isn't big enough to really bother Meta, but ActivityPub is a convenient way to seem cool, so they'll partially support it as long as it doesn't cost them all that much. Once the marketing gimmick has run it's course, they'll drop it.
I think the same was true for XMPP. I don't think they planned to kill XMPP and I don't think they plan to kill ActivityPub. But they did kill XMPP, and they'll probably kill ActivityPub by accident as well when they support it just well enough to pull people over.
So I'm not worried about some Meta conspiracy to kill ActivityPub, I'm worried about getting steamrolled on accident for a similar reason that people don't want to share locations of where they took pictures: they don't want the big mass of people coming to destroy something unique.
So my recommendation is to push for making everything E2E encrypted by default, and have every message cryptographically signed by the contributor. If there's something ad companies hate it's privacy, and that's what we should be pursuing. I'm not sure how that works for Lemmy, but surely there's a way for instances to manage who can decrypt messages.
in a thread where we're discussing how meta helped religiofascists violate someone's human rights "meta is evil" is a summary, not an ad hominem
Yeah Google is more to blame for that. When they defedarated it was pretty much the end of XMPP. From what I remember, Facebook used the protocol but never opened their service for federation.
That was a quote from 13 years ago when he didn't know how massive his enterprise would become. People change.
As for him, he became more evil.
And even if what I do is relatively tame, I want others to be protected from the wolf at the door.
This. I don't need to win, I just want Meta to lose.
General Hux!
Are you saying that the individuals who run these servers and instances aren’t subject to the same laws? I read the article, and Facebook complied with a court order.
You don’t think anyone running Lemmy would do the same without access to lawyers and capital like Facebook has?
Do you have to run your lemmy instance in the US?
Maybe do it in a less backward place
Not disagreeing with you there.
Every interaction on Lemmy is copied to all other federated instances. There are instances all over the world with a copy of yours and my comment. They can track and use those comments for any purpose. Its both a blessing and a curse of an open federated structure.
they can also scrape them. that's not really the point.
people can dm on lemmy, and only the two instances that host the people on either end of the dm (which may even be the same instance) store that dm. that instance may actually receive a subpoena. but all of this is heavily discouraged by the lemmy interface itself, instead prompting people to set up a matrix account instead, and matrix chats are end-to-end encrypted.
Its a social platfrom. Dont use it for personal communications.
And how can we be sure that all the instances federated with any instance we participate on aren't run by law enforcement themselves? I'd be surprised if there aren't running instances by every major investigative agency themselves.
This is why everyone should take steps to protect their privacy. You don't have to go 0-100 overnight. Just audit yourself and do a few things now. Keep those habits up. Then audit and add a few more things, repeat.
I need to do this myself, I've been slipping
Lemmy promotes using Matrix, which is a separate service, so instance admins don't need to be in the business of hosting private conversations.
Matrix is end-to-end encrypted so even the admins of your Matrix server could not provide your chats to law enforcement.
I wish Lemmy was as well. Ah well.
Complying with the law is less of an issue than keeping that data accessible in the first place.
But also fuck these laws and the people passing them and the people voting for the people passing them. They're the real evil.
We have to always assume rich corporations are going to do whatever serves their best interest. It's nature. Like a mantis is gonna bite off her mate's head when they're done mating. It's up to governing factors to keep them in check. On that note, +1 to defederate. They will cannibalize or however abuse Lemmy if it will make them a penny.
I think we’re realizing more and more any corporate-operated platform is luring us in to sell to us and sell us.
Ya. That's fucked. Just ruin someone's life like that. Holy fuck.
I totally agree with your sentiment... However they don't have a choice. They are legally obligated to turn that information over if they are served a warrant. Doing anything less is obstruction at the very least and they could be shut down and put into receivership.
The fault here is with the two individuals trusting a corporation to keep data private and to put the individuals interests ahead of the corporation. Neither is a realistic expectation.
I vote to write this reasoning at the very top, on the sticked topics when it happens. Like, literally just write "Because Facebook is evil" and don't elaborate.
Plus, if someone shows up being a concern troll on the point, they will laser focus on it, taking the bait, we can all just block the person, a world improved.
Any Lemmy instance would have given over the same information in this case. Meta was complying with a valid, legal search warrant.
If some fuckstick from Nebraska asked me to snitch on my users for something which isn't a crime in my state, I would simply tell them to fuck themselves, go ahead, and try to have me extradited. If my instance were bordering on a trillion dollars market cap, I'd hire a fucking lawyer.
Just yesterday here on Lemmy, I mentioned the dangers of violating privacy, and some commenters went on about "what dangers?" Implying there were none...
Is it not enough to gesture broadly?
No one has anything to hide, until they do
I once heard that "Anyone can be charged with a crime if they can be watched closely enough for long enough."
I'm committing a crime right now, pairing this red wine with this halibut.
I remember that from Don't Take to The Police. Since gotchas I can think of is touching an eagle feather lying on the ground (endangered animals plus a market for poachers). Point being, that it's essentially impossible to say with certainty that you've broken no law.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/d-7o9xYp7eE
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source, check me out at GitHub.
Good bot!
Found the quote:
It's used around 4:40 in the Don't Take To The Police video.
And there are so many laws that it is impossible to know all the laws that apply in any given moment. Basically, you always have -something- to hide.
At this point, they'll just say "yeah, but these people did a crime. I don't do crimes so I have nothing to worry about". The problem with that mentality, I would hope, doesn't need to be stated.
I stopped trying to change the world.
This is the perfect example of why you should be worried. Because your government can turn into a fascist dictatorship at any time and you ain't getting that data back.
I agree that these people did a crime.
I just don't think their crime should be illegal.
If this was about murdering a full-grown adult and not aborting a fetus, nobody would be talking about privacy concerns. Guaranteed.
How do you know they committed a crime. After reading the article I don’t know. It looks totally as if it’s possible that she just had a miscarriage.
Maybe there’s just a prosecutor eager for convictions.
Maybe she was trying do avoid exactly this kind of trouble.
She took abortion drugs.....
People are getting all upset at Facebook/Meta here but they were served a valid warrant. I don't think there is much to get mad about them here. The takeaway I get is this:
Avoid giving data to others. No matter how trustworthy they are (not that Meta is) they can be legally compelled to release it. Trust only in cryptography.
There is of course the other question of if abortion being illegal is a policy that most people agree with...but that is a whole different kettle of fish that I won't get into here.
Maybe just elect non fanatical nut jobs?
Good luck with that. The way voting works in the US basically guarantees a 2-party race. With only 2 parties you end up having policies grouped into these huge bundles, so making an actual decision on any particular issue is incredibly difficult. (Unless you are a billionaire and want to lobby a party for a law)
Completely right. This is an education issue.
There are several other issues how these two handled this situation.
Don't discuss this or involve anyone else.
Why are they even talking to police? Lawyer up, even if the lawyer is free.
Facebook messenger and text message is the absolute worse way to discuss things like this. They should've at least turned on E2EE but they already admitted fault and their devices would've been taken away anyway.
They seem like they together. They should've just discussed this in person.
Granted, I’m lucky enough never to have been arrested or questioned about a crime. I don’t know how difficult and manipulative interrogations are outside of what I’ve seen on TV. Even still, I’m amazed by and critical of people who talk to the police without a lawyer present.
Even if you think (or know) you’re guilty, that doesn’t mean you should let the system have its way with you.
This is an older story, and 5 months later Meta announced that they're rolling out full E2EE encryption to Messenger, I don't think that's a coincidence. Are they doing it out of the goodness of their hearts? Probably not, they're a corporation, but this does show that global backlash actually works for something.
Use end to end encrypted messaging apps, and, if you're in a situation like this, know what they can be forced to share via court order. For example, while WhatsApp has full E2EE and messages can't be turned over, IP addresses can, which can be used to track location, so don't connect to an abortion clinic's wifi for example. Probably just a good rule in general, as law enforcement could subpoena router logs if they have a suspicion.
Ideally use something that can hand over less metadata like Signal if you're in this sort of situation, they don't even keep IP address, but this is a lesser known app that also relies on the recipient using Signal.
On one hand - yes Meta followed the legal requirement, but the bigger picture is that people always say “so what it’s <insert deficiency> just don’t do anything illegal”. But that’s only fine when legality matches morality. And the disparity has been growing lately.
They couldve opted to end 2 end encryption just like they do on whatsapp. Then the warrant can eat shit.
While whatsapp is using e2e encryption it is still owned by meta, as such I trust it just as much as plain facebook messenger. Signal ftw.
A valid warrant that was only possible to get information from because of Meta's policy of "opt-in" for encrypted messages. They are still at fault imho
The problem is that private messages should be private, meaning Meta should've had no ability whatsoever to share those messages even if served a warrant. Those messages should be E2E encrypted.
Fwiw, Messeger does have e2e encryption, just opt in only afaik. Whether or not you trust meta with that is another matter, but it is there.
I haven't trusted Meta since they IPO'd. I deleted my account sometime back in 2015 or so, had to recreate it when I went on-site as a contractor for a week, and promptly deleted it again.
But it's good that they have E2E, it should be on by default and not able to be disabled. Regardless, they probably have anything encrypted indexed anyway so they don't lose that little bit of info about you.
America is a terrifying church with guns. I pity the citizens.
Every country has the anti-abortion cancer movement and it wouldn't surprise me if the shit gets more serious here in Europe too with the rise of far right parties. As a matter of fact you have only to look at Poland.
We'll keep saying that can't happen here right up until it happens
Y’all better be careful
Women's reproductive rights are strongly supported in Canada, but that doesn't stop one of the main national parties playing coy with a commitment to not reopen the debate.
To be fair, it seems most Americans support women's reproductive rights as well, with a referendum in Kansas passing with 59%.
It's gerrymandering and the Supreme Court that are changing things down there.
I cannot feel any less hopeless for my country
Regardless of what you think about abortion laws people just gotta come to terms with the fact that your phone and computer are not reliable partners in crime
They should be? I mean, not just for the crime, but in general privacy should be the default.
I mean yeah it should but you gotta follow the old saying "don't write when you can speak, don't speak when you can nod, don't nod if you can wink" or whatever. You have an expectation of privacy when sending physical mail for example, but it's still a bad idea to put a crime in writing if you don't have to. Even if it can't legally be used as evidence it can be read. We've seen that with 'parallel construction' from law enforcement
I've actually never heard that saying. I like it a lot.
Wait, lemme write that down
The Klingons of Star Trek also have a saying: If you do not wish a thing heard, do not say it.
It should be, I fully agree, unfortunately we live in a digital panopticon.
You can always use something like PGP to encrypt your communication.
True, sadly not many people show up for my key signing parties, even if I serve three kinds of chips.
Only if you trust the device your decrypting on. Wouldn't trust windows or Mac with information that could put me in jail.
Madcow -- While you are not wrong, we are talking about the unwashed masses here who are not necessarily savvy. "Private chat" really should have been.
Except in france.
TIL the of the word Panopticon. Thanks stranger
Yeah, that sounds pretty on-brand for Meta
They are just complying with the law here. As much as I don't think Meta are great people I'd rather that they follow the law than make their own decisions. Of course we should also consider fixing these laws, but that isn't really Meta's responsibility.
Law enforcement will knock on the doors of Fediverse servers and there will need to be some monetary fund for legal fees.
If law enforcement knocks on my door with a valid warrant I'm going to comply. It would be nice to have some legal assistance to help validate the warrant but at the end of the day in this case it was almost certainly valid.
If this was about a murder rather than abortion people would be applauding Meta for helping catch the murderer. I think what people are actually mad about is the law, and they are using Meta as a scapegoat.
But at the end of the day E2EE is the best solution here. Don't give private data to others, they can't be trusted because they can be compelled by the law.
And this is one thing that people don't seem to understand about Lemmy et al. If you post messages (including DM's) on any one host, that message will be duplicated to any federated hosts. In most cases the only encryption would be in transit, so all it takes is for one of those hosts to be in a jurisdiction where the local authorities can seize the data, hackers can infiltrate poorly secured server, etc
If you are worried about the privacy/security of your data, it's not really any safer here then on Reddit or Facebook etc. It may be more resistant to corporate influence but at the same time a kind citizen running a node is less likely to have money to fight legal action and warrants.
Yes. You really should treat anything you post on Lemmy (or anywhere else that isn't E2E Encrypted) as public.
This is also why Lemmy recommends against using Lemmy direct messages and recommends Matrix with E2EE instead.
I'm almost certain that if something like this happened to any fediverse instance - that a local police enforcement would contact the admin and asked for user's data, which they are required by law to provide or they would go to jail/get a hefty fine and possibly a criminal record, they would do that too. That's also why E2E is required, to prevent such problems for instance admins - but then again, there's really nothing you can do against local law, and if it requires that you have to be able to cooperate, well... Then there's not much the admin can do, without putting himself in a real risk of prosecution, because he is breaking the law by have E2E.
That's also a good reason to be careful when selecting your home instance, and making sure that you choose one in a country that has all right laws in that regard.
Of course, that's assuming the police makes contact. I don't suppose that the admins would be searching through the DMs of people to snitch on them. And if Meta is doing that preemtively and is actively snitching on people - that's downright evil.
the fediverse is not meant to be private...
EDIT: I though you are replying to the comment about just hosting single-user instances, and assumed that you meant that if everyone had their own single use private instances, it would be against the fediverse idea. Sorry about that.
I wouldn't say that's making the fediverse private - it's only making my personal account and data about what I visit private. That's what the ActivityPub protocol is for, and the more I think about it, the more I hope that some kind of app would show up - one that would be designed to just act as a personal front-end for the Fediverse, which would allow you to interact as a user from your instance with others, but also one that would keep all of your data, which are currently at mercy of your instance admins, at your personal instance.
Of course, you still need people to host instances that are actually made for communities and content, and that's what Lemmy or Mastodon is designed for - but I'd like to see a Fediverse app that isn't made for hosting content, but only for letting you interact with other instances. There's no drawback - quite the contrary, instance admins don't have to deal with and take care of my private data, because my instance is handling all of that, while I still will be providing content for their instance. I think that definitely fits into the idea of what Fediverse should be.
The only thing I'm not sure about yet is if it's possible - if I create a Post on an instance that's not my home, who is hosting the data? Do I only send ActivityPub Create Post with the data and the instance then saves it, or do I create the post on my own instance, send an ID, and if someone requests the Post data on the instance I posted to, it will be requested from mine? Because if it's the first one, then such a client that only implements DMs, your own user account, and a frontend for showing posts on other instances would be doable. And definitely something important, because it solves the biggest privacy issues of Lemmy right now. I see no drawback in that - the only data I would not be in control of are the ones I post to other instances, but that's ok. And even if you would be the one hosting it, all it means is that it would be a little bit harder do host it yourself.
Also, if I understand the ActivityPub right, if you're ok with not getting notifications or DMs, your personal instance wouldn't even need to be online at all times, since you only request data about communities and posts when you are browsing. But this would depend on whether the content and comments are hosted at your instance, or at the instance you are commenting or posting to.
I really like this idea. And from what I've seen of the ActivityPub protocol, it should even be that hard, aside from the UI.
Generally, choose any instance hosted in European Union and you should be good to go.
I hear what you're saying. We have to take to the sea. We should all pitch in and make a mega instance that floats on international waters.
Why one? Let's make several instances that float in international waters!!
I honestly think the trick for E2EE is to just collect so little, that even by complying, you can't give them very much. That trick has worked really well for Signal in the past.
Single user instance locally hosted, is the only way forward
Hmm, that actually sounds like a great idea. Does it actually need to be reachable from the outside, if you don't want to host any of your own communities on it? Or will it be enough for the instance to just pool data? Apart from no-one being able to contact you via DM, that is.
I'll look into it, having my own home instance actually sounds pretty easy and it may work.
Actually - wouldn't it even be possible to build a browser extension for that? One that just simulates ActivityPub calls, and you just browse on someone else's instance without logging in while still allowing you to comment or vote on your behalf?
EDIT: I've posted some more thoughs about it to another comment, which I assumed was a reply to this one. The more I think about it, the more I really like the idea of a self-hosted front-end for Fediverse apps that doesn't host communities, but only user interactions and allows you to interact with other apps and instances.
The federation API isn't using E2E either. It makes no difference if you use your mobile client to contact the mobile API or if you're hosting your own instance to use the federation API in safety regards. You should always be aware that every message / post / image you publish (even in a closed group) in the internet could be traced back to you and with enough afford be available to anybody with the right skills.
Only end to end encryption can help you there - this is the way.
Is it even possible to implement E2E in the context of ActivtyPub? I mean, as far as I know, the federation doesn't specify what content you send, only activities, groups and object definitions. There's nothing stopping you from making the actual data E2E encrypted, altough making it so would be a hard problem.
On the other hand... As I've mused about in the other comments, it should be possible to create a fediverse app that serves as a self-hosted front-end for interacting with different fediverse apps. All of your personal data would live on it, and you are in full control. Which would also allow for a safe implementation of E2E, because you just publish your public key, and know that since the app is under your control, noone can get to it. However, this would mean that the other users whould have to use the same standart.
I actually really like that idea. If we can separate users from servers with content, so Lemmy instances would only host posts and comments, but DMs would be handled by the private user instances, it would make Fediverse a lot more private.
The only question standing in the way is - who hosts the content of the posts I make? If my home is programming.dev, and I post to lemmy.ml, do I send the post data through ActivityPub to Lemmy to host, or do I host in on programming.dev, and Lemmy.ml just gets the ID of the post? If it's first one, making the self-hosted user frontend will be easy, since all you need is a few API calls to make posts, and the only storage you need is for DMs and your account details (which may actually static, so a faked webpage returning your data may suffice). If it's the latter, then it will be a lot more difficult to easily self-host.
Is this practical? How technically difficult is it? What are the hardware requirements?
Any potato that can run a docker container. I'd say for 1 user that's going to be under 1gb ram and 1 vcpu
PSA: I'm neither American nor a lawyer, but AFAIK, US law forbids the indiscriminate investigation of foreign individuals to prosecute US citizens, so having your account in a foreign instance is one more layer of protection.
Have you heard of the CLOUD act?
E2E is technically illegal for any interstate communications in the USA, since refusal to comply with a wiretap order will put you in jail for contempt, regardless of whether the medium allows for interception or not.
How do communication apps get away with E2E in the US then? Is there a backdoor that allow for companies to comply or does law enforcement seek alternative means of obtaining the information?
What year is it
1984
1984 indeed..
This is what "Freedom & Family" means, apparently!
And y'all thought China having your data was something to be afraid of.
Curious why you are so comfortable with that?
I never said I was comfortable with it, but you clearly missed the point I was making.
Worry about what data is being harvested in your own country where a law change can suddenly put you in danger of being arrested before worrying about China having some of your data.
Is it bad how much data the Chinese govt get from you using apps like Tik Tok or phones made by Huawei? Sure, but the threat is a lot closer to home than you think as this article shows.
Remember folks, when subverting a theocratic hellscape, use something encrypted.
This isn't subversion, or any sort of theocratic hellscape.
Girl could have gotten an abortion 100% legally up through 20 weeks of preganancy. At 24 weeks the fetus becomes viable outside the womb. At 28 weeks she (with the assistance of her mother) took meds to kill the fetus and induce a stillbirth, commenting that she couldn't wait to be able to wear jeans again.
She goes through natural labor to pass the stillbirth outside of any medical facility or supervision, burns the remains, and buries them on a farm. When questioned by police, she and her mother admit to using Facebook Messenger to discuss their plans.
The only thing in any way related to the romanticized fiction of some sort of downtrodden freedom seeker you're talking about is that using encrypted communications would have prevented their discussions from being available to be subpeona'd. That said, admitting to police you even had those discussions in the first place kind of defeats the damn purpose.
Allowing her to just get an abortion would have avoided this entire situation in the first place.
I think I'm missing something here. She was allowed to just get an abortion, for 20 weeks. This was all before the godawful Roe v Wade repeal.
It was also in a state that didn't change their abortion stance after Roe v Wade was repealed. Nothing was stopping her getting an abortion for the first 20 weeks like you said.
Eh 28 weeks seems kind of late for an abortion though.
That's none of your business, though. It's not your body. Besides, Nebraska is basically a third world country when it comes to maternal health care availability, which makes this applicable:
You are right, but you're swimming against the tide here. 28 weeks is a fully formed child that moves and would survive of born at this point. I am all for reproductive rights but going up to 28 weeks is just irresponsible.
We don’t even know if she had an abortion. May she had a miscarriage and was just trying to avoid what’s happening now, being accused of having had an abortion.
Now that sounds a lot like theocratic hellscape…
I've taken the liberty of re-reading the article and have some things to point out 1. the girl was 17, a literal child, something you seemed to forget in your comment 2. You mentioned that she wanted to wear jeans again and that that was the motive, but the word 'jeans' wasn't even mentioned, which makes me wonder if you're tampering with anything in your comment coming from the article. All that considered you have a good point with some things such as in this specific situation such as them confessing to conspiracy was not a good idea, but I will still say use something end to end encrypted when doing something like this.
Where was that in the article? I missed it.
If you have nothing to hide... but then they just change the laws, now you are a criminal and they already have handy tools in place to convict you.
You cannot be convicted for an action that was made illegal after you comitted it. This is just Facebook sucking data and making money off others' misfortune. I am sure that they didn't hand over the chat logs for free. "I got nothing to hide" is exactly the reason Meta is a multi-billion company. Your agenda should be "I have nothing to gain from sharing my life with them".
It's like "don't talk to cops, it will not help you".
That was not my point. The point is, if the tech for mass surveillance is already in place and the laws change to more authoritarian or even just more dumb, it will be harder to escape those.
That is obvious not true, otherwise people would not be using social media.
They handed over the chat logs in response to a court order to do so. The gov't didn't pay them. They forced them.
"I gUeSs IlL use ThReAdS. WhAts ThE hArM" /s
What data do instances expose to Meta if they federate that Meta (or literally anyone) can't obtain right now if they wanted?
"private chat history" on Facebook...
When you oppose the left-wing, you're defending this.
Gonna Re-Share this resource... PLEASE forward to individuals who may need it! https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/05/digital-security-and-privacy-tips-those-involved-abortion-access
thank you!
I thought messenger was end-to-end encrypted, at least according to Facebook. How were they able to hand over the chat logs? The messages should be encrypted with a key that is itself encrypted with user's password, which Facebook doesn't store.
What am I missing?
You’re not telling me Facebook LIED are you? No way I wouldn’t believe it /s
Actually that page suggests that they can't access it. They'd never passed the security on it if that page was lying and they don't encrypt it. Clearly there must be some kind of mechanism they can use to decrypt it for law enforcement. The technicals of that are what I was actually interested in from my original comment.
EDIT: Oh my God I just figured it out. It's not enabled by default. You have to explicitly turn it on per conversation. That's terrible
Even if you turn it on, they control the end points, so it's not really any more secured.
You're missing the fact that they lied to get users
Presumably they maintain full access because they control both ends. The encrypted part would stop others intercepting messages. At least that's how I've always read it
Edit: I'm wrong, end to end does exclude even the app provider from seeing messages. So yeah, either not enabled or they lied
It's not enabled by default
And on the official app it isn't called end to end encryption or even a setting toggle. It's called secret chat and clicking on it opens a chat from the original chat. The only difference I see is a little lock icon where an emoji usually is.
Sounds like Telegram, smh
wait, what ? can you elaborate, since I use telegram on daily bases
@linux_user_6967 @Goun Telegram's end-to-end encryption isn't enabled by default. You have to specifically choose to start an encrypted chat. Assuming you trust MTProto though, there's no indication they're otherwise implemented poorly.
To add to other replies, proprietary apps like messenger can also have backdoor access to your messenger app, where the messages are stored decrypted. I.e. maliciously taking the chat history from either ends of the end-to-end encryption.
End2End encryption is mostly a PR stunt. In practice it's not hard to go around it. For example:
It reminds me of this XKCD: https://xkcd.com/538/
Jesus Christ, America.
I can't remember the last time I saw anything that made me think "I would like to go to America".
These days it's just another thing to add to the ever increasing list of reasons NOT to go there.
I live in a third world country with a crumbling infrastructure, shitloads of violence and crime, a rapidly rising cost of living, crap working opportunities and corrupt government.
Americans live in a first world country where it seems more and more like most of the problems I mentioned are somehow worse there and the ones they haven’t got yet are on the horizon.
I used to think it would be my future home. Now I’m looking for literally anything other than the US/China.
this is pretty disgusting even for Facebook
This is right up their alley.
Not really. I mean, what did you expect from a company that's responsible for manipulation of two major, major elections (one in the US and UK each) as well as a genocide in SEA?
And that's just what's known publicly.
Just deleted my Instagram Account for good. I have no need for any Meta App on my Phone or any other Stasi like Institution
Someone feel free to refresh me but I think it's Samsung in the US you can only disable Facebook not delete it and it still calls home even if disabled. Probably other manufacturers as well. If you roll with android over apple 100% get a pixel. Yes fuck Google as well but they don't have any 3rd party shit collecting your data unless you install it.
You can use adb to uninstall those kinds of baked in apps. Its completely fucked up that you need to though.
Nope, S23 Ultra unlocked here, no Facebook on device.
There were some Samsung and google apps but that's it
I believe thats just part of the service provider bloatware packages that come preinstalled into the OS. You have to root the phone and do a clean install without the bloatware to get rid of it. Its annoying as hell and I think its stupid that these companies can preinstall anything on these phones.
Not so. Unlocked is Facebook free. Blame your carrier
Oh fuck yes....just checked my unlocked Samsung...no Facebook. Definitely a carrier thing fuck off Verizon
This isn't correct or at least it isn't a universal issue. My Samsung Galaxy 21+ doesn't have Facebook on it, disabled or otherwise.
Use Signal messenger and have it set for auto deletion of messages if you must message!!!
Of course use Signal or Matrix but please don't think that makes your messaging entirely impenetrable. I am not saying their end-to-end encryption has been breached. But a compromised device is a compromised device. Signal might be secure at least for now, but is your keyboard?
We do live in times of zero-click spyware and while the general public doesn't necessarily have to worry about things like Pegasus atm, it is still used increasingly and not just against people who break the law.
I do my best, although I do fail to be up to date every once in a while, to stay as secure as possible, but to think any communication is entirely secure is not a good policy.
Unless you pissed off an entire nation state I wouldn't worry about signal as long as you encrypt your device and use a password to unlock. Although I believe that some police in the u.s. have some kind of black box for unlocking phones. In that case, I guess you break off your USB port and rely on wireless charging. Even then, they could send the phone to someone to disassemble and pull an image from the device image and try to get in that way.
Pissing off entire nation state or at least people in power in that nation is unfortunately easy these days. And while the average person usually doesn't run into these issues the shrinking spaces and criminalization of civil society even in countries you wouldn't think are that far gone are at the level that surprising people might run into these issues. There are also some situations where you don't need to piss off entire governments to get a lot of data from a person. Tech-savvy abusive spouse might be enough.
We are not really disagreeing here. I just think that we need to be open about the vulnerabilities and strengths of software. The security of Signal and Matrix are absolutely great especially compared to things like WhatsApp. But they are not 100% secure. Very little is.
Agreed. Basically if you know that nobody will have physical access to the device and that nobody who cares has the money to buy a vulnerability from an Israeli firm, then you're good.
Signal or Matrix is also fine.
Well, don't use Facebook to talk about doing things that are illegal. Why do people not use common sense?
Because when you talk person to person, most average people do not think there's a middle man ease dropping.
💀
The trouple Meta-GOP-Elon.
Meta needs to be destroyed. No organisation, person, or people should hold that much power.
They followed the law. Which they have to do.
This is an issue primarily with the law. It's not like Meta proactively shared that data.
There's huge issues with Meta. But they're mostly beside the point here, and certainly not the problematic power at play here.
Deflecting from law makers, courts, and prosecution to just Meta is misplaced and counter-productive.
If there were actually end to end encryption on the messages, they wouldnt have the ability to decrypt the messages for the government when asked. So either A. Meta lied about their encryption, or they are lying about storing users passwords which is arguably worse as many use passwords for multiple uses even when we know we shouldn't. If Meta is required to not use encryption then once more I agree users should not use them for any personal messaging. Which is what it sounds people are preaching against here.
Was the form of private messages disclosed? Does meta claim end to end encryption on Facebook/Facebook messenger? That would be new to me.
Having to provide back doors is another issue with the law/government and courts, not Meta or their power.
IMO lying is not an issue of power as the commenter I replied to mentioned. They implied Meta was the perpetrator, the active part in all this. When in fact they either followed law or followed the law while being a shitty company. But they're not the active part, the cause in this ordeal.
Aside from any moral or political views, it amuses me when people do criminal acts and fail to realize police can inspect personal data like text messages, email, and social media. I think people smart enough to realize that are smart enough to avoid committing a crime in the first place. Though there are smart criminals that get away with it, you just don't hear about them because they don't get caught. In any case I tend to think being stupid is prerequisite to being a criminal.
The only crime here is the crime against humanity of taking away a person's agency over their own body
Fuck Meta!!
I love metal and hate dyslexia and 2!!
Fuck meta
America fuck yeahhh 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🦅🦅🦅🦅
There is no such thing as a private chat on a platform you do not own. And even if you DO own the platform it is only as private as the participants decide it to be. Hopefully people start to realize this before complete non-privacy becomes the accepted norm.
Private doesn't means the privacy in this case just a formal formatting. If they were not discussing in a publicly available chat then it is already considered private by the definition but yeah, 99% true.
There is no way for these companies to say no to law enforcement. That is why you should stay away from corporate social media.
Not that facebook doesn't suck and we definitely shouldn't federate with Threads. But here's another article on this. Very late abortion where the fetus was probably viable. 17 year old was like, "I can't wait to get this thing out of me. I can finally where jeans." swallowed some pills to abort. Burned and buried the body on a farm. and the mom and daughter told the police about the facebook messages.
https://www.npr.org/2022/08/10/1116716749/a-nebraska-woman-is-charged-with-helping-her-daughter-have-an-abortion
So not the best case to argue all the things, but I suppos yet another reminder not to trust big tech with our sensitive information.
Yep. I'm pro-abortion rights, but this was just murder.
Damn these seem like trustworthy people who we should definitely federate with.
Any and every Lemmy instance owner would hand over your DMs to law enforcement as well btw.
Well this bodes well for Threads.
So either FB isn't actually E2E, or their implementation is Twitter-grade broken.
Who said facebooks private chat would be e2e?
Facebook claims to have E2E chats, but not by default. Likely these people used the default, non E2E messages.
Not that I'd trust FACEBOOK with E2E anyway.
One thing I hate is while I dont trsut metas encryotion, it isnt even a default which at this point in American history is just irresonabile and reckless. It sucks we can't teach about open source in schools.
And if you make enough spelling errors, your post essentially encrypts itself! :D
All these two needed to do was install a different app. Signal was just sitting there waiting for them to use, for free.
That’s messed up
Wait what the heck is an illegal abortion? You mean getting one from unlicensed practioners? Some do it time to time to save money or don't know any better.
In Nebraska or most other red states, could be having an abortion at all. Did you miss SCOTUS overturning Roe v Wade using, I kid you not, quotes from the 1600s in their reasoning?
Not American, the most I hear are when new presidents are elected or the occasional riots.
I'm not American either, but since my country catches a cold when the US sneezes, I keep tabs on what's happening over there..
Well put, and we're (some of us at least are) sorry about that cold you caught.
It's ok, I know that the ones with the decency to feel bad about it aren't the ones constantly getting us sick 😉
This will be referring to recently introduced laws essentially banning all/any abortion to be carried out (in some states even in extreme cases like rape/incest, or to save the life of the mother), but outside of that an illegal abortion might be due to it being done later in the pregancy than is legal, or without following required processes e.g. requirements to get scans first, alert the father, or have a consultation (most of which are often just traumatising anti-choice measures). Also as you say, using an unlicensed practitioner or unsafe method, yeah. Which aside from money, is sometimes due to fears of repercussion from their community or partner about either the pregancy or getting an abortion, so they seek back-door options or try to do it themselves without proper care.
She took something that aborted the baby in the third trimester(28 weeks), well after Nebraska's 20 week window for legal abortions. 6.5 months into a 9 month process.
The baby could have survived if delivered, with specialized care, which puts it well outside of the "clump of cells" argument.
And yet, it's still many weeks before the "her body her choice" argument ends.
An argument that, at 6.5mo of gestation, is well outside the moral limits of the vast majority.
When are they going to rebrand to 2facedbook?
I second that
I dont think most people actually read the article. These women performed an abortion at 28 weeks, abortion that late in the game has always been illegal in every state.
So… was there ever a doctor involved at all? I’m a big proponent of the right to choose, but this is pretty messed up.
Anyone happen to know if this was chat history through Facebook Messenger or WhatsApp? WhatsApp claims end to end encryption doesn't it? I thought they say Facebook Messenger is also encrypted, but not end to end.
The main point to know is if you do not encrypt it with keys generated localy on your machine and encrypt it locally, then you can not be sure it really is E2E encrypted. If a corporation does it for you with their keys they can ready anything so this kind of E2E is more or less marketing bullshit and Apple is guilty of this too.
Yes, lets give Meta and Zuck te benefit of the doubt.
Block all Meta and commercial access or you will be part of a product.
This is an interesting point. If my server is hosted in California where abortion is legal, and some police dept from Alabama wants access to my message database, can I tell them to pound sand?
IIUC no. All of the US and some allied countries respect court orders. In general evidence can be collected worldwide as long as the crime was committed where it is a crime.
But IANAL.
Read the article guys, don't fall into the headline trap. Facebook is definitely a bad guy, but it's not the bad guy here.
Oof. I feel there’s a lot more of this kinda stuff to come…
Facebook doesn't use e2e.
There is a private chat e2e feature, but then your chats don't show up on PC.
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