(Molly Bruns, Headline USA) Investigative journalists Michael Shellenberger and Matt Taibbi, who wrote and published initial stories on the Twitter Files, discovered that leftist activist, pro-censorship tyrants and administration officials attempted to spy on encrypted texting apps.
Censorship activists tried to spy on and censor texting apps that market themselves as encrypted, such as What’s App, Signal and Telegram, according to a report from the journalists.
“There is currently no easy way to discover potentially problematic content on WhatsApp and other end-to-end encrypted platforms at scale,” censorship advocates in a January 2022 Omidyar Foundation report said. “One potential solution is to make use of misinformation ‘tiplines’ to identify potentially misleading or otherwise problematic content… On WhatsApp, a tipline would be a phone number to which WhatsApp users can forward potential misinformation they see to have it fact-checked.”
One Twitter-adjacent project known as “CryptoChat” also advocated for the surveillance of encrypted chats in order to track language that is not approved by our government overlords.
The stated goal of the project, funded by a group known as the Omidyar Network, is “to gain a deeper understanding of the nature of dangerous content on encrypted messaging apps,” and “to build and test a legal and ethical framework for the collection and use of encrypted messaging data.”
The Omidyar Network, founded by Ebay creator Pierre Omidyar, is a staunch advocate for spying on individuals who use encrypted apps.
“Reports of violence, disinformation, and manipulation campaigns originating on private messaging platforms have become all too common,” Omidyar said in a 2022 report. “Not only are individuals’ lives and liberties impacted, but dangerous platform design choices also have devastating implications for our democratic institutions and the health and well-being of our societies.”
Left-wing magazine Wired called for the government to spy on private messaging apps, saying they promote “abusive and illegal behavior, disinformation and hate speech, and hoaxes and scams.”
The Omidyar Network has a net worth of $9 billion, and claims to be a longstanding advocate for free speech and personal privacy.
