One need not be a nightwatchman libertarian to fear a state apparatus that sees all. George Orwell literally wrote the book on the dangers of Big Brother, and he was a democratic socialist. The state has become increasingly nosy and bossy. It has catastrophically mishandled data, threatened to reintroduce blasphemy laws, and hung out to dry people accused of blaspheming. Expressing opinions that we all held five minutes ago is now fraught with hazard.
The police turn a blind eye to shoplifting and burglary but show up mob-handed to confront people about tweets that break no law but might offend somebody, somewhere. The “Scottish Government”, as we must learn to call it, has used poorly drafted hate crime legislation to assault freedom of speech. The UK Government told us all to stay at home for months on end and encouraged us to shop our neighbours if they transgressed.
It is natural, especially in such a climate, to resist online snooping and yearn for privacy. We also need to know that online financial transactions are secure. The great attraction of end-to-end encryption is that it lets the sender and receiver exchange online messages in total privacy. Even the company hosting the message on its platform is unable to read it, as are law enforcement and the intelligence agencies. They may be able to see that messages have been exchanged, but because of end-to-end encryption they can’t read them. That is very appealing for anyone who wants to share a bad taste joke or a politically incorrect opinion. It is also the most fantastic boon for paedophiles.
It is unrealistic to suppose consumers will boycott wildly popular social media apps
Do not suppose that online child abuse only happens on the Dark Web. The truth is very different — and terrifying. Paedophiles, and the avaricious scumbags who enable them, use the same apps that you use every day. End-to-end encryption on, for example, WhatsApp, means that offenders can freely message each other to arrange the abuse of children and to share pictures and videos of children being abused. To repeat, neither the authorities nor Meta — the company that owns WhatsApp and Facebook — can read these messages or view any attached photos or videos.
I’m writing here about horrendous crimes which have a devastating effect on their victims. And every time such material is viewed, it creates a demand for more content. It is also vital to understand the sheer scale on which this is happening. We are not talking about a glitch in the system, but rather a colossal problem. Online sex crimes are rampant. Global technology companies have known this for years. In 2021, they reported more than 29 million suspected cases of child sexual abuse material on their platforms, which accounted for some 85 million videos and images. Yet they can’t report the sharing of such material through end-to-end encryption, because they can’t access it and therefore don’t know about it.
There’s nothing like real life to clarify the degree to which one is a civil libertarian. Call me a commie or a fascist if you want, but it turns out that I don’t think free speech and privacy are the only things that matter. I want the authorities to be able to spy on and stop people who want to hurt children. We hear a lot about the need for safeguards that stop the state overreaching, and with good reason, but the need to safeguard children is being lavishly ignored.
Big Tech can’t be trusted to do the right thing. These companies chose to introduce end-to-end encryption without adequate safeguards. Politicians were unable to stop them. I know for a fact that successive Home Secretaries wanted to act and that their concerns were shared by security ministers from the other Five Eyes countries (with whom the UK shares intelligence): the USA, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Downing Street and other Whitehall departments seemed only to care about not upsetting Meta. Meanwhile, Meta’s CEO can expect little internal pushback from Meta’s Chairman, given that they are the same person: Mark Zuckerberg.
The Online Safety Act 2023 gives Ofcom the power to fine companies that fail to protect users, by up to £18 million or 10 per cent of “qualifying worldwide revenue”, whichever is greater. But will Ofcom act? How can they act, when end-to-end encryption enables and conceals illegal activity? Cops and spies can insert themselves into criminal groups, but this is costly, difficult, and no panacea. The UK Government has funded research into possible technological solutions, but even if good proposals emerge, they will be pointless if Big Tech rejects them.
It is insane to leave industries to self-regulate or expect them to enforce the law. It is also unrealistic to suppose that consumers are going to boycott wildly popular social media apps. This is a rare case where I would like to see more cooperation between nation states, but I can’t say I’m hugely optimistic. And I haven’t even mentioned the fact that organised criminals and terrorists also use end-to-end encryption.
What, then, can you or I do? I’m afraid I’ve got nothing better than what follows. Mark Zuckerberg is one of the most powerful men in the world, yet even he would struggle to ignore a sustained barrage of terrible PR. Maybe it would concentrate his allegedly brilliant mind if he kept hearing — from politicians, law enforcement experts, broadcasters and journalists, child advocacy groups, victims who were willing to speak out, and as many of the rest of us as possible — that he is on track to become the greatest enabler of paedophiles in history.
That was surely not Mark Zuckerberg’s dream when he started developing Facebook in his Harvard dorm room or when he bought WhatsApp. We may have to try this case in the Court of Public Opinion.
