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by ByteWelder 1755 days ago
> * they do want to help keep your children safe

Well-meaning intentions are irrelevant to what's effectively happening on the bottom line.

> * they told you in detail how the system would work

This is great though. In any normal situation, this would build trust. Not so much in this case, because of the impact on privacy and potential for abuse.

> * they are holding off on releasing after the world gave them feedback

The crucial part is that they still intend to continue with their plan. They'll possibly modify it, but we'll have to see what that means. Well-intentioned backdoors are still backdoors.

> Who else is doing better?

That's completely irrelevant to the discussion. Just to humour the question: Android (AOSP), Pine (from PinePhone), Librem, CalyxOS and GrapheneOS are some products and operating systems that I could think off that respect the users' privacy better.

> I get that you don’t like the system, but how do you solve it? Is it not worth solving? Too easy to nix ideas without contributing to the conversation.

Customers don't have any responsibility to solve this. It's totally in the customers' right to complain and say "we don't want this feature". For good reasons, as shown by all the experts and privacy advocacy groups.

1 comments

I would like some substantiation for your claim that Android is doing better in terms of privacy. Everything I’ve seen more or less points to the opposite.
Android doesn't scan the files on our phones against a government ban list with the intent to upload said files to and alert law enforcement. We can confirm this because Android is open source. This makes Android objectively more secure and more private.
Please note the "AOSP" mention: I was referring to Android Open Source Project, not the variants with Google's apps and Play Services installed.