[bezbac]

You're right; I didn't offer a solution. The point of my comment was how one-sided and predictable the framing around these measures has become. As you can see by some of the other comments, I seem to not be the only one thinking that.

Let me ask you the apparent counter question: do you not see the value of private communication? If you use Facebook Messenger personally, don't you feel that you have gained something by your messages being encrypted? If not, is your reply simply "I ain't got anything to hide"?

[zaphar]

As I said I'm sympathetic. My question was more about effective strategy in countering the push against encryption than it was challenging the utility and value of private communication.

[bezbac]

Now I got you. I guess "keep children safe" here means two things.

1. Protecting them from grooming 2. Stopping CSAM from being spread via Facebook Messanger

It's evident that E2E encryption likely doesn't make much of a difference regarding the second point, given that many messengers have already implemented E2E encryption.

So, assuming the communication of the NCA was perfectly sincere, the loss here would be mostly the inability to prevent grooming properly. In this case, I think the question we should be asking ourselves is whether children need to be on these platforms at all. We're seeing so many issues linked to the phone use of children that regardless of protecting them from sexual abuse and exploitation, they should probably just be using phones less.

[zaphar]

This is I think a much more effective line of communication. I would also suggest that investing in creating communities where parents are much more involved in their children's activities is also a really effective mitigation. Much of our current communities seem to be trending in a direction where children are isolated and alienated making them much richer targets. Creating communities where the environment is much less target rich for those who would prey on them would I think be a good step. Also making it a community where children are more likely to report the predator would go a long way toward identifying and removing the predator from those communities.