this post was submitted on 09 Jul 2023
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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.

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[–] [email protected] 567 points 1 year ago (37 children)

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?

[–] [email protected] 213 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (31 children)

yeah, the difference is pretty stark:

  • lemmy: we'll give you a way to dm anyone on site, but please don't use that, if you set up an app on this other open source service we're not affiliated with (which is basically an encrypted discord) we'll do our best to make it as seamless for you as possible. we'll keep warning you for your own privacy.
  • meta/facebook: aggressively keeps you on-platform for spying purposes; literally killed xmpp a decade ago and they'll fuckin do it again (if we let them)

They trust me. Dumb fucks.

- Mark Zuckerberg

(yes it sounds like satire but that's a real quote)

[–] [email protected] 38 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The Lemmy DM is imo actually quite important. If I want to get in touch with someone about a post, nothing more. It is an easy option, and serves a purpose. It isn't imo meant to be used for anything else.

[–] [email protected] 34 points 1 year ago (4 children)

yep, it's important that we have this capability, but it's also nice that unlike other platforms that do their best to lock you in, lemmy actively pushes you toward a safer alternative

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[–] [email protected] 33 points 1 year ago

I mean I agree with Zuck on that one.

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[–] [email protected] 56 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

And even if what I do is relatively tame, I want others to be protected from the wolf at the door.

[–] [email protected] 33 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This. I don't need to win, I just want Meta to lose.

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[–] [email protected] 169 points 1 year ago (39 children)

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?

[–] [email protected] 35 points 1 year ago (1 children)

No one has anything to hide, until they do

[–] [email protected] 43 points 1 year ago (7 children)

I once heard that "Anyone can be charged with a crime if they can be watched closely enough for long enough."

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[–] [email protected] 145 points 1 year ago (12 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 49 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Maybe just elect non fanatical nut jobs?

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[–] [email protected] 40 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Completely right. This is an education issue.

There are several other issues how these two handled this situation.

Court and police records show that police began investigating 17-year-old Celeste Burgess and her mother Jessica Burgess after receiving a tip-off that the pair had illegally buried a stillborn child given birth to prematurely by Celeste.

Don't discuss this or involve anyone else.

The two women told detective Ben McBride of the Norfolk, Nebraska Police Division that they’d discussed the matter on Facebook Messenger, which prompted the state to issue Meta with a search warrant for their chat history and data including log-in timestamps and photos.

Why are they even talking to police? Lawyer up, even if the lawyer is free.

(E2EE is available in Messenger but has to be toggled on manually. It’s on by default in WhatsApp.)

Facebook messenger and text message is the absolute worse way to discuss things like this. They should've at least turned on E2EE but they already admitted fault and their devices would've been taken away anyway.

They seem like they together. They should've just discussed this in person.

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[–] [email protected] 143 points 1 year ago (3 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 39 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (7 children)

Every country has the anti-abortion cancer movement and it wouldn't surprise me if the shit gets more serious here in Europe too with the rise of far right parties. As a matter of fact you have only to look at Poland.

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[–] [email protected] 91 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 54 points 1 year ago (11 children)

They should be? I mean, not just for the crime, but in general privacy should be the default.

[–] [email protected] 44 points 1 year ago (7 children)

I mean yeah it should but you gotta follow the old saying "don't write when you can speak, don't speak when you can nod, don't nod if you can wink" or whatever. You have an expectation of privacy when sending physical mail for example, but it's still a bad idea to put a crime in writing if you don't have to. Even if it can't legally be used as evidence it can be read. We've seen that with 'parallel construction' from law enforcement

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[–] Mikina 80 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (21 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 30 points 1 year ago (1 children)

the fediverse is not meant to be private...

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[–] [email protected] 80 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yeah, that sounds pretty on-brand for Meta

[–] [email protected] 29 points 1 year ago (22 children)

They are just complying with the law here. As much as I don't think Meta are great people I'd rather that they follow the law than make their own decisions. Of course we should also consider fixing these laws, but that isn't really Meta's responsibility.

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[–] Dioxy 69 points 1 year ago (31 children)
[–] [email protected] 65 points 1 year ago (6 children)

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

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[–] [email protected] 63 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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

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[–] [email protected] 62 points 1 year ago (16 children)

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

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[–] [email protected] 52 points 1 year ago (3 children)

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.

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[–] [email protected] 50 points 1 year ago

"private chat history" on Facebook...

[–] [email protected] 49 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

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

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[–] [email protected] 48 points 1 year ago (4 children)

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

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[–] [email protected] 48 points 1 year ago (1 children)
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[–] [email protected] 47 points 1 year ago (13 children)

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

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[–] [email protected] 44 points 1 year ago (12 children)

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?

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[–] [email protected] 43 points 1 year ago (2 children)

this is pretty disgusting even for Facebook

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[–] [email protected] 42 points 1 year ago (12 children)
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[–] [email protected] 41 points 1 year ago (2 children)

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

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[–] [email protected] 38 points 1 year ago (6 children)

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

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[–] [email protected] 36 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)
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[–] [email protected] 35 points 1 year ago (1 children)
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[–] [email protected] 29 points 1 year ago (2 children)

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.

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[–] [email protected] 29 points 1 year ago (17 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 37 points 1 year ago (11 children)

The only crime here is the crime against humanity of taking away a person's agency over their own body

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[–] [email protected] 28 points 1 year ago

America fuck yeahhh 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🦅🦅🦅🦅

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