Fight for the Future is calling on all companies with direct messaging platforms to immediately implement default end-to-end encryption for DMs and message back-ups, and on activists and organizations to join the campaign by signing on at

Fight for the Future

OPEN LETTER: Make DMs Safe

Open Letter: Make DMs Safe In 2022, Facebook handed over abortion-related direct messages between a mom and her teenage daughter to police. Now the...

Recently, mounting activist/expert pressure has been forcing companies to take decisive action on this issue: both Google and Discord made announcements this month about expanded end-to-end encryption testing and roll-out:

The Verge

Google Messages now encrypts RCS conversations by default

It’s a big milestone for Google.

X (formerly Twitter)

AlternativeTo (@AlternativeTo) on X

Discord is experimenting with end-to-end encryption for voice and video calls to improve user privacy. The company is considering using Messaging L...

Now with the overturn of Roe, the private messages of anyone seeking, facilitating, or providing abortion care are also at risk of being used by law enforcement as tools of criminalization. The messages of one Nebraska teenager and her mom already have:

The Verge

A woman and her daughter plead guilty to abortion-related charges supported by Meta-provided Facebook chats

The woman and her daughter will be separately sentenced later this year.

Just the most recent examples of how DMs are used to target activists: The Colorado Springs police department forcing Meta to hand over the private Facebook messages of a housing justice advocate and of the Chinook Center, a small progressive Colorado Springs organization: https://www.cpr.org/2023/08/03/colorado-aclu-sues-colorado-springs-police-department-and-fbi-over-alleged-unlawful-privacy-invasions-of-local-activist/

This roll out couldn’t happen fast enough. Privacy experts have been pointing to importance of end-to-end encryption for years – for everyone online, but especially for vulnerable people historically targeted by surveillance, including activists, journalists, immigrants, and other racialized people https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/19/technology/end-to-end-encryption.html

In the letter, Meta lays out why the launch of end-to-end encryption on Messenger is taking time, why the company believes E2EE is so vital for user privacy, and why E2EE is also - in the company's view - the right business choice. https://messengernews.fb.com/2023/08/22/expanding-testing-for-end-to-end-encryption-on-messenger/

Breaking: #Meta has responded to the demands of the MakeDMsSafe.com campaign in a letter to Fight for the Future that reiterates the company's commitment to rolling out default end-to-end encryption for Facebook Messenger in 2023

The Verge

Meta refreshes promise to roll out default end-to-end encryption in Messenger this year

Pressure for default E2EE has risen after the reversal of Roe v. Wade

We cannot rely on tech companies to protect us, esp when they see the 246100 potential of AI. What we need is strong federal data privacy legislation that will actually protect us from corporate surveillance & stop companies like Zoom from harvesting & abusing our data for profit.

Meanwhile Zoom is still offering AI features in Zoom IQ. Zoom says participants will be notified when AI is in use but that doesn’t actually mean they can consent to its use or opt out (esp if it is in use at school or work and there is no alternative)

How Zoom’s terms of service and practices apply to AI features | Zoom

As part of our commitment to transparency and user control, we're providing clarity on our approach to Zoom’s AI features and content sharin...

Yes, Zoom listened this time and made changes but this should serve as a warning to other tech companies following this trend of misleading customers and trying to get away with stealing user data while hiding behind confusing policy updates

ICYMI: Following the backlash from ❤️Fight and other privacy experts, Zoom updated its terms of service AGAIN. This time to clarify that the company will not use any customer content to train Zoom’s or third-party AI

Zoom revises terms again to say it doesn’t use customer data to train AI models

Zoom has updated its terms of service (TOS) again to remove language about using content collected from its communication app to train artificial i...

STATEMENT: “The concerted efforts of Big Content to ensure the enshittification of public #libraries and shut down digital libraries like the #InternetArchive could not be clearer than they are with this new lawsuit from the world’s biggest record labels. #music #library #preservation #lawsuit #copyright #copyrighttroll

Fight for the Future

Statement: Major record labels sue to destroy Internet Archive’s 70-120 year old music archive

The same law firm that sued Internet Archive to end all libraries’ ownership and preservation of digital books is behind a new effort to shut dow...

New Substack post: Cops is internet is cops

Cops is internet is cops

Why pretend social media isn't the perfect place to go undercover?

Zoom’s Terms of Service update is staking a claim to user data and “customer content” to train its AI models. The company says this is necessary to provide its services to customers, but what it really wants is to profit from user data.

Popular Science

Zoom could be using your 'content' to train its AI

Though the video conferencing company adjusted its terms of service after public backlash, privacy experts worry it is not enough.

New Substack post is up :D It's about Pee-wee's Playhouse, obscenity, and the bad internet bills:

Policing the Playhouse

Who decides what's obscene? Some thoughts on KOSA and Paul Reubens's death

We launched a Substack this week! We’re calling it Touch Grass because its central focus will be connecting digital issues to the real world. We're thinking about it as an idea laboratory where we can expand on things—like Amazon worker towns, health tech, and algorithmic music taste—that might not have full campaigns yet. The goal is to make it fun to write and definitely fun to read. This week's post (by @anna) is about our Bad Internet Bills week of action:

"Think of the children" bills will break free speech

If they pass, it's goodbye to an open, creative, degenerate, anonymous internet.

We're hoping to hear Senators on the committee express concerns about KOSA. That would be a huge victory. The only reason that would happen is bc of the thunder we all are bringing to DC. Lately, lots of bills are getting passed out of committee only to die sad pathetic deaths.

Everyone is doing a fantastic job driving the opposition to KOSA. There’s no need to panic based on today’s vote, just take calm persistent-ass action every day, and take good care of yourselves too. The best place for updates & action will keep being

Fight for the Future

Bad Internet Bills

All of the bad internet bills. One website.

Also, for what it’s worth, there’s way less support for KOSA in the House of Representatives, which hasn’t voted on it at all yet, than there is in the Senate. TL;DR we have lots of ways to win!

If we want to kill KOSA, we do have to keep that activist pressure up in order to keep it from passing the full Senate. If KOSA passes out of committee today, we need to redouble our efforts and call our representatives every day telling them to vote NO on KOSA.