[bigcorp-slave]

The core problem here is reporting to prevent CSAM (hopefully, it is uncontroversial that doing so is desirable) but rather that this makes on-device snitching on any topic a matter of -policy- rather than -technology-. It is much harder for a government to say, you must implement this large and complex feature, you must keep it secret, etc - especially a foreign government - than it is to say, here are some new hashes, please plug them in to your database that four people have access to. Or to say, please scan all images instead of just those uploaded. Even if Apple wants to right by its users, it is making it much easier for Apple to be compelled to do wrong.

“We promise” is easily forgotten. “We can’t” requires dev teams to change.

[3grdlurker]

I agree about how the technology can be applied to other instances, but I feel that people who are criticizing Apple are crucially placing all the blame on Apple but not on the government that pressured them into doing this in the first place. This CSAM issue is proof that if even the most valuable company in the world can be pressured into compliance, then any company in the world could be, calling into question whether it is realistic in the first place to expect companies to act ethically while also creating highly profitable products.

For all the things that have been said about the issue, I don’t remember a single comment that has been directed at the US government, or China itself, or any discussions about how nation-states should be run and genuine introspections on what could prevent surveillance states from existing in the first place.

[judge2020]

This is because people, for some reason, see Apple's 3-trillion-dollar valuation as being some purely self-made fortune to the point that Apple could rival these governments with their technology stance, when in reality Apple's success has only been enabled by the governments that house and profit from Apple's dominance - and now they're coming for their share of surveillance instead of dollars.