[CryptoPunk]

He didn't outright advocate for it from the interview that I believe motivated this article, but he did pretty strongly imply that end-to-end encryption facilitates crime and shouldn't be allowed:

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/28/bill-gates-lies-spread-faste...

>“Some of the messages on their platform, they don’t even see because of the encryption on WhatsApp,” Gates said. “In order to not have any responsibility, they’ve made that opaque. You know, so whatever the issues — anti-vaccine, child pornography — they have made sure they can’t intervene on those things.”

[snarf21]

This is very disappointing. My response for people on this side is this: Great, hand me your unlocked phone. I promise not to share anything with anyone else.

[CryptoPunk]

Gates has never shied away from the idea of amassing enormous power over others to himself and others he trusts.

[ACS_Solver]

That's not how I read it. The quote is Gates talking about Facebook. My interpretation isn't that he's saying E2EE is bad, but rather he's saying that E2EE is a convenient way for Facebook to avoid/deny responsibility for things being spread through parts of the platform that they own.

[CryptoPunk]

I can't see any implication from that position with respect to E2EE except that these platforms shouldn't be allowed to have it.

[coldcode]

Exactly right. This is not a story but blowing a quote out of context into something that it is not.

[orangepanda]

Ah the classic "why wont anyone think of the children" reasons.

[toyg]

His position doesn't seem to be a blanket "e2e should be banned", but rather that social networks have a responsibility to police discourse on their platforms and they've used e2e as a mean to avoid that responsibility.

I personally think it's a red herring - even where there is no e2e, like on regular FB, it's extremely difficult to police user-generated content and fake news (a category that arguably includes TFA). This is just trying to whip up a storm against Gates.

[CryptoPunk]

His position with respect to E2EE seems to be that social networks and other communication platforms shouldn't be allowed to have it.

It's pretty clear what his philosophical outlook is, and what he would say about ANY widely adopted use-cases of E2EE.

[Mountain_Skies]

Pretty much every freedom facilitates crime in one way or another.

[cpr]

Nice equivocation of CP and asking critical questions about vaccine safety.

[happytoexplain]

The term "anti-vaccine" does not refer to people who are only "asking critical questions about vaccine safety".

[cpr]

Sure it does. Anyone questioning the mainstream narrative is immediately labeled an "evil anti-vaxxer". Try it sometime.