Facebook turns over mother and daughter’s chat history to police resulting in abortion charges

3 years ago by Jure Repinc to c/technology

Unencrypted chat history is a prime target for police

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.

load all comments
twentyfumble 100 points 3 years ago

I don't particularly like Facebook but..

If a country makes it legal to criminally prosecute girls who seek an abortion, and the same country makes it legal to allow police enforcement to demand tech companies to handover their data, maybe the problem is the country and its laws, more than Facebook.

path: 0 1048075, hotness: undefined, score: 100, children: 12
frumpyfries 25 points 3 years ago

You're not wrong, but Facebook made no effort to fight the issue and simply handed over data they never should have.

path: 0 1048075 1048946, hotness: undefined, score: 25, children: 5
Taokan 9 points 3 years ago

I really don't blame Facebook for not jumping into the abortion debate and martyring themselves. If people don't like the abortion law, or the law that compels facebook to give this information to law enforcement, they need to make that known by voting for representatives that feel the same. Facebook taking a fat lawsuit to the face isn't what's going to change things there - it's women realizing it could happen to them, it's men realizing it could happen to their wife/girlfriend/daughter.

path: 0 1048075 1048946 1050181, hotness: undefined, score: 9, children: 2
reliv3 10 points 3 years ago

they need to make that known by voting for representativea that feel the same

Be nice if it was that simple, but the democratic system itself is broken. We have presidents that come in power while losing the popular vote. We have states that gerrymander their districts to reduce the value of certain demographic's vote. We have supreme court justices with life terms that are interpretting laws with political bias. Unfortunately, it is getting less and less likely that America is going to improve by working within it's systems because the system is clearly stacked against us.

path: 0 1048075 1048946 1050181 1050518, hotness: undefined, score: 10, children: 1
theterrasque 1 point 3 years ago

They never should have? Messenger saves the history on the servers, that's how that works. How do you think the fireworks would look if users logged in on a new phone or machine and had no chat history?

There are ways it could be stored encrypted, but if that's a wanted feature they provide WhatsApp

Edit: but this is also why e2ee is so important, and why security experts tell people to use e2ee if possible. At this point, at the top of my head, it's WhatsApp, signal, I think matrix, and sorta telegram that provides.

path: 0 1048075 1048946 1052737, hotness: undefined, score: 1, children: 0
IlllIIIlllIlllI 1 point 3 years ago

Why should they make an effort to break the laws of countries they do business in? If they don’t like the laws, they shouldn’t do business there.

path: 0 1048075 1048946 1050735, hotness: undefined, score: 1, children: 0
technology
technology

@lemmy.world

login for more options
87401
21272
15822

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.

Our Rules


  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related news or articles.
  3. Be excellent to each other!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
  10. Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.

Approved Bots


go to feed...