Meta proves untrustworthy (again)
Law enforcement watching me write this article. (Photo: Daily Dot)
Seventeen-year-old Celeste Burgess and her mother Jessica are facing charges after Jessica bought Pregnot, a medication designed to end early-term pregnancy, and gave it to her daughter who was 28 weeks pregnant. In Nebraska, abortions are only legal up to 20 weeks from fertilization unless the pregnant person is at risk of death or major impairment.
In order to bring the charges forward, investigators obtained a court order demanding Meta turn over personal data from the Burgesses. The messages, which included Jessica giving instructions on how to take the pills and Celeste saying “Remember we burn the evidence,” were then used as evidence for a second search warrant to seize computers and mobile phones.
“I know from prior training and experience, and conversations with other seasoned criminal investigators, people involved in criminal activity frequently have conversations regarding their criminal activities through various social networking sites,” wrote Ben McBride of the Norfolk, Nebraska Police Division. For McBride, this made acquiring their devices crucial in the investigation.
Do shoot the messenger
Remember when we asked if Big Tech cares about women’s rights? Well, there’s your answer.
It’s disappointing but not surprising that Meta turned over the Burgesses’ personal information to the police. With over 2.9 billion active monthly users as of April 2022, Facebook is the largest and most popular social network in the world. For years, experts have called for regulation of how much user information tech companies should hold and be allowed to use.
It doesn’t help that Meta’s been incredibly shifty about their data usage policy after the overturning of Roe v. Wade. They banned Facebook users who posted about mailing abortion pills on the day of the decision. When asked by Motherboard of Vice whether they would turn over abortion-related data from users, Facebook didn’t respond.
The lack of default end-to-end message encryption on Facebook Messenger takes center stage in the Burgess case. Apps like Telegram and WhatsApp have default encryption enabled to assure users of their privacy. While there are still ways for hackers or law enforcement to circumvent encryption, private messages aren’t as easily accessible by network employees as opposed to Messenger’s current setup.
In Meta’s current system, encryption is a tedious process that requires a user to go through each chat’s setting to create what’s called a “secret conversation.” From there, Messenger creates a new channel for your conversation, leaving past messages still out in the open.
Critics of encrypted messaging have said it could get in the way of user protection, especially in cases of child safety. While previously, Meta has said rolling out end-to-end encryption on Messenger and Instagram would not happen until 2023 in order to “get things right,” it seems backlash from the Nebraska case has prompted them to speed things up.
Not just an abortion issue
Now, you might be reading this and thinking, “Well, abortion isn’t legal in the Philippines so I don’t have to worry, right?” Wrong.
When I was a student journalist in college, if we needed to discuss sensitive matters like sexual harrassment, we had to do so either in-person or on a separate chat app to avoid any leaks to school or even national authorities. We knew as students that our regular Facebook chat wasn’t safe.
The Philippines has a rocky relationship with Facebook, moreso in the wake of Cambridge Analytica harvesting millions of user data to benefit political campaigns, possibly including that of former president Rodrigo Duterte. Meta is also undertaking steps to take down harmful content relating to the May elections and shootings like that of Chao Tiao Yumol.
We’ve also seen a rise in cases of red-tagging and cyberlibel throughout the country. Activists report being followed and surveilled by anonymous people threatening violence. Just recently, former vice presidential candidate Walden Bello was arrested for cyberlibel following a Facebook post criticizing an aide of then-Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte. Concerns surrounding the anti-terror law came from worry about police-sponsored disinformation.
Ranking fifth among the top users of Facebook, who can say if Filipinos will be the next for Meta to take to court?
