"”Apple sells iPhones without FaceTime in Saudi Arabia, because local regulation prohibits encrypted phone calls. That's just one example of many where Apple's bent to local pressure. What happens when local regulations in Saudi Arabia mandate that messages be scanned not for child sexual abuse, but for homosexuality or for offenses against the monarchy?”"
Good question. Companies have to follow laws. The naive, early 2000s notion that the internet was unstoppable and ungovernable was mistaken. Apple, Google and the other internet bottlenecks were, it turned out, the pathway to a governable internet. That fight is lost.
Now that it's governable, attention needs to be on those governing... governments, parliaments, etc.
The old version of freedom of speech and such didn't come from the divine. They were created and codified and now we have them. We need to do that again. Declare new, big, hairy freedoms that come with a cost that we have agreed to pay.
There are dichotomies here, and if we deal with them one droplet at a time, they'll be compromised away. "Keep your private messages private" and "Prevent child pornography and terrorism in private messages" are incompatible. But, no one is going to admit that they are choosing between them... not unless there's an absolut-ish principle to defer to.
Once you're scanning email for ad targeting, it's hard to justify not scanning it for child abuse.
Good question. Companies have to follow laws. The naive, early 2000s notion that the internet was unstoppable and ungovernable was mistaken. Apple, Google and the other internet bottlenecks were, it turned out, the pathway to a governable internet. That fight is lost.
Now that it's governable, attention needs to be on those governing... governments, parliaments, etc.
The old version of freedom of speech and such didn't come from the divine. They were created and codified and now we have them. We need to do that again. Declare new, big, hairy freedoms that come with a cost that we have agreed to pay.
There are dichotomies here, and if we deal with them one droplet at a time, they'll be compromised away. "Keep your private messages private" and "Prevent child pornography and terrorism in private messages" are incompatible. But, no one is going to admit that they are choosing between them... not unless there's an absolut-ish principle to defer to.
Once you're scanning email for ad targeting, it's hard to justify not scanning it for child abuse.