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Credit to Author: Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai| Date: Fri, 10 Nov 2017 20:11:25 +0000<\/strong><\/p>\n About a year ago Facebook launched a new security and privacy feature for Facebook Messenger: end-to-end encrypted chats. <\/p>\n This was a big deal. Before it was implemented, all chats, gifs and emoji sent through Facebook Messenger could be seen by Facebook, and, in turn, by law enforcement agents armed with a warrant. But some criticized the social media giant<\/a> because the feature\u2014called Secret Chats\u2014was optional, and not enabled by default for all users, unlike WhatsApp<\/a> (a Facebook company). <\/p>\n At the time, I reached out to Facebook in an attempt to clear up what I thought was the key question here: Why can WhatsApp users have end-to-end encryption by default and Facebook Messenger users can\u2019t? A Facebook PR person was quick to respond, and he set up a phone interview with Tony Leach, Facebook Messenger’s product manager. As a result, we published a story that was nuanced and explained why encrypting messenger is more difficult than encrypting WhatsApp<\/a>, because we were able to speak to a person who actually worked directly on the feature we were reporting on. Most importantly, that person spoke to us on the record, allowing us to publish direct quotes from the interview.<\/p>\n Fast-forward to this week, when a new Facebook program to combat the spread of revenge porn<\/a> was announced in the Australian press and was quickly picked up by media all over the world. The pilot program was bound to be controversial. In essence, to stop abusers from uploading explicit pictures without their subject\u2019s consent, Facebook is asking Australians to voluntarily submit their own nudes, so the social network can generate a digital fingerprint of the picture and then stop anyone else from uploading and spreading it.<\/p>\n Read more: The Bots That Are Changing Politics<\/a><\/b><\/p>\n When we heard about this program, we had a lot of questions: Is Facebook storing these pictures? If so, for how long? How does Facebook make sure people don\u2019t abuse the system to trick it into censoring non-abusive pictures? My colleague Louise Matsakis reached out to Facebook with these questions, and a Facebook representative gave her answers \u201con background,\u201d meaning we were allowed to paraphrase, but not directly quote the answers.<\/p>\n One of the spokesperson\u2019s responses, it turned out, was wrong<\/a>. Facebook initially told us the system was designed to blur pictures before showing them to a human team of reviewers. It told us this was the case two times, then said it was wrong when she followed up. Mistakes happen, but in this instance Facebook was wrong about a basic and crucial part of a controversial program.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, Facebook Chief Security Officer Alex Stamos, a very well-respected information security expert, wrote on Twitter that the media and public at large had misunderstood the intentions and the methods behind the anti-revenge porn program.<\/p>\n \u201cOur greater infosec\/privacy community, including the media, has trouble talking about imperfect solutions to serious problems,\u201d Stamos tweeted<\/a>. \u201cI think this is a good demo of why we need to continue to talk about these problems publicly to build understanding and trust.\u201d <\/p>\n Stamos had similar complaints earlier this year when multiple media outlets covered news of Russian ads and propaganda on Facebook. <\/p>\n \u201cI am seeing a ton of coverage of our recent issues driven by stereotypes of our employees and attacks against fantasy, strawman tech [companies],\u201d Stamos tweeted<\/a>. \u201cMy suggestion for journalists is to try to talk to people who have actually had to solve these problems and live with the consequences.\u201d<\/p>\n It is crucially important that the public understands how Facebook works<\/p>\n Facebook head of global safety Antigone Davis gave a statement to Australia\u2019s ABC for its initial story, but Facebook didn\u2019t make any of its experts available to journalists for follow-up questions about how the program would actually work. None of the follow-up articles published about the program in the days after the news broke had on-the-record interviews with Facebook employees. Before we published our story about Facebook\u2019s human review process of nude photos, I asked Stamos directly for an interview about the new program. He said he would ask Facebook for permission to talk to me (I previously profiled Stamos<\/a> when he was head of Yahoo!\u2019s security), but I was eventually told Facebook was preparing a blog post to address the new program. <\/p>\n The Daily Beast executive editor Noah Shachtman, along with other journalists, responded<\/a> to Stamos\u2019s earlier tweets: If Facebook wants to quell confusion about its product, it should actually talk to journalists.<\/p>\n