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

To the people shitting on the idea of a default defederation with Meta, how about we deferedate not because it will affect us as posters but because they are evil pieces of shit?

Just yesterday here on Lemmy, I mentioned the dangers of violating privacy, and some commenters went on about "what dangers?" Implying there were none...

Is it not enough to gesture broadly?

People are getting all upset at Facebook/Meta here but they were served a valid warrant. I don't think there is much to get mad about them here. The takeaway I get is this:

Avoid giving data to others. No matter how trustworthy they are (not that Meta is) they can be legally compelled to release it. Trust only in cryptography.

There is of course the other question of if abortion being illegal is a policy that most people agree with...but that is a whole different kettle of fish that I won't get into here.

America is a terrifying church with guns. I pity the citizens.

Regardless of what you think about abortion laws people just gotta come to terms with the fact that your phone and computer are not reliable partners in crime

Yeah, that sounds pretty on-brand for Meta

I'm almost certain that if something like this happened to any fediverse instance - that a local police enforcement would contact the admin and asked for user's data, which they are required by law to provide or they would go to jail/get a hefty fine and possibly a criminal record, they would do that too. That's also why E2E is required, to prevent such problems for instance admins - but then again, there's really nothing you can do against local law, and if it requires that you have to be able to cooperate, well... Then there's not much the admin can do, without putting himself in a real risk of prosecution, because he is breaking the law by have E2E.

That's also a good reason to be careful when selecting your home instance, and making sure that you choose one in a country that has all right laws in that regard.

Of course, that's assuming the police makes contact. I don't suppose that the admins would be searching through the DMs of people to snitch on them. And if Meta is doing that preemtively and is actively snitching on people - that's downright evil.

What year is it

And y'all thought China having your data was something to be afraid of.

"I gUeSs IlL use ThReAdS. WhAts ThE hArM" /s

Remember folks, when subverting a theocratic hellscape, use something encrypted.

If you have nothing to hide... but then they just change the laws, now you are a criminal and they already have handy tools in place to convict you.

"private chat history" on Facebook...

When you oppose the left-wing, you're defending this.

Gonna Re-Share this resource... PLEASE forward to individuals who may need it! https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/05/digital-security-and-privacy-tips-those-involved-abortion-access

Meta needs to be destroyed. No organisation, person, or people should hold that much power.

Just deleted my Instagram Account for good. I have no need for any Meta App on my Phone or any other Stasi like Institution

I thought messenger was end-to-end encrypted, at least according to Facebook. How were they able to hand over the chat logs? The messages should be encrypted with a key that is itself encrypted with user's password, which Facebook doesn't store.

What am I missing?

Jesus Christ, America.

this is pretty disgusting even for Facebook

Well, don't use Facebook to talk about doing things that are illegal. Why do people not use common sense?

Use Signal messenger and have it set for auto deletion of messages if you must message!!!

💀

Fuck Meta!!

the pair’s private chat history

There is no such thing as a private chat on a platform you do not own. And even if you DO own the platform it is only as private as the participants decide it to be. Hopefully people start to realize this before complete non-privacy becomes the accepted norm.

Aside from any moral or political views, it amuses me when people do criminal acts and fail to realize police can inspect personal data like text messages, email, and social media. I think people smart enough to realize that are smart enough to avoid committing a crime in the first place. Though there are smart criminals that get away with it, you just don't hear about them because they don't get caught. In any case I tend to think being stupid is prerequisite to being a criminal.

America fuck yeahhh 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🦅🦅🦅🦅

There is no way for these companies to say no to law enforcement. That is why you should stay away from corporate social media.

Not that facebook doesn't suck and we definitely shouldn't federate with Threads. But here's another article on this. Very late abortion where the fetus was probably viable. 17 year old was like, "I can't wait to get this thing out of me. I can finally where jeans." swallowed some pills to abort. Burned and buried the body on a farm. and the mom and daughter told the police about the facebook messages.

https://www.npr.org/2022/08/10/1116716749/a-nebraska-woman-is-charged-with-helping-her-daughter-have-an-abortion

Damn these seem like trustworthy people who we should definitely federate with.

One thing I hate is while I dont trsut metas encryotion, it isnt even a default which at this point in American history is just irresonabile and reckless. It sucks we can't teach about open source in schools.

Wait what the heck is an illegal abortion? You mean getting one from unlicensed practioners? Some do it time to time to save money or don't know any better.

So either FB isn't actually E2E, or their implementation is Twitter-grade broken.

Well this bodes well for Threads.

That’s messed up

When are they going to rebrand to 2facedbook?

Meta complied with the request, with the Messenger chat history appearing to show Celeste and Jessica discussing Celeste’s use of home abortion medication. At the time, Celeste was 28 weeks pregnant — at the start of her third trimester.

Police used the chat history as evidence to seize the pair’s computers and phones. They have since charged the two women with a number of crimes, including charging Jessica with allegedly performing an abortion 20 weeks after fertilization and performing an abortion without a licensed doctor (both felonies), and charging Celeste (who is being tried as an adult) with the felony of removing, concealing, or abandoning a dead human body.

So… was there ever a doctor involved at all? I’m a big proponent of the right to choose, but this is pretty messed up.

Anyone happen to know if this was chat history through Facebook Messenger or WhatsApp? WhatsApp claims end to end encryption doesn't it? I thought they say Facebook Messenger is also encrypted, but not end to end.

I dont think most people actually read the article. These women performed an abortion at 28 weeks, abortion that late in the game has always been illegal in every state.

This is an interesting point. If my server is hosted in California where abortion is legal, and some police dept from Alabama wants access to my message database, can I tell them to pound sand?

Permanently Deleted

Yes, lets give Meta and Zuck te benefit of the doubt.

Block all Meta and commercial access or you will be part of a product.

Read the article guys, don't fall into the headline trap. Facebook is definitely a bad guy, but it's not the bad guy here.

Facebook doesn't use e2e.

There is a private chat e2e feature, but then your chats don't show up on PC.

Oof. I feel there’s a lot more of this kinda stuff to come…

[Deleted]

So... just capitalists acting like capitalists. Who coulda thunk it?

Another case of Meta cowering in front of local extremist laws. For those arguing that it should follow the local laws, hell no and fuck you. Do you realize Saudi Arabia for instance officially calls atheists terrorists and that we could imagine Meta handing over lists of atheists based on private conversations to the Saudi government to have them beheaded using some bogus anti-terrorism search warrant? We're not very far from that if we still believe Meta did nothing wrong.

There is no presumption of privacy, especially when you’re the product.

Jesus Christ, we really do already live in hell don't we

Yea, this wasn't an abortion, this was straight up murder. Headline is clickbait as fuck.

She aborted at 28 weeks. That's nearly 6 and a half months pregnant. Most babies can survive outside the womb when they're around 22 to 23 weeks. This was a baby, not some tiny fetus.

Jesus Christ if I couldn't hate the United States more, just makes me more motivated to improve Lemmygrad's secure communications guide...

Serious clickbait bs, the one time FB didn't do anything slimy, at least not by FB standards of slimy

They aborted a child 7 months into pregnancy. That’s murdering a baby. Fuck those people, glad they are being prosecuted, and it’s good that Meta complied. The law in that state gives her 20 weeks to abort. That’s 5 months. That is a pretty liberal allowance.

I have mixed feelings on abortion, but spying on and snitching on people you disagree with is too far

did anyone actually read the article? you guys are responding like meta sent this data on its own. it was issued a search warrant after the two women told police that they had discussed the third trimester (28 week) abortion on facebook. they literally gave the police the tip off and meta just followed the law written by the people elected in that state by properly responding to the search warrant.

do i like meta? no. do i agree with abortion law as it is? no.
do i think meta should follow the law? yes.

Good! Next time they will be wiser