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> That'd be a pretty significant scandal

Facebook's history is a long string of pretty significant scandals that are forgotten a year later because they're not about X, which would be something much more serious and deserving of great reprieve...

> No matter how disillusioned you are with Facebook, directly and overtly lying to customers about encryption would be next level

This feels like an ethical line drawn on your own, and a technical distinction (which we, as technically-inclined people, are wont to make) that means little in the practical legal and sociopolitical frameworks of what constitutes a breach of contract and cause for punishment.

> Sneaky fine print is one thing. Plain lying is another.

Have you read the entirety of FB's fine print regarding its services, including WhatsApp? I haven't.



> WhatsApp end-to-end encryption ensures only you and the person you're communicating with can read what's sent, and nobody in between, not even WhatsApp.

https://faq.whatsapp.com/general/28030015/

Instead of us going back and forth about this, perhaps a lawyer can weigh in: is there any way Facebook would survive a lawsuit if this were patently false? Meaning, they delibrerately put in a backdoor to the encryption and are reading messages, knowingly, as intimated in this thread.

And would this be "another day in the life", or would it be a transgression of new levels for Facebook?

It is my conviction that companies try and do what they can to stay within the confines of a hypothetical lawsuit. That's what legal departments are for, essentially. If this were a lie, I would be very, very interested in knowing how they got that document past legal. But perhaps a real lawyer can elucidate matters?




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