Messaging services call for 'urgent rethink' of proposed law
Good evening,
WhatsApp has joined forces with other messaging services to urge the government to rethink its Online Safety Bill. The platforms fear the proposed law will undermine end-to-end encryption and therefore the privacy of their users.
Will Cathcart, head of WhatsApp at Meta, has suggested he is even prepared to see the app blocked in the UK rather than weaken its security. But have ministers got the message?
| Hollie Clemence
Executive Editor |
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| TODAY'S BIG QUESTION | | WhatsApp and other encrypted messaging services have called for the UK government to "urgently rethink" its controversial Online Safety Bill, hinting that they would rather be blocked from operating in Britain than weaken their privacy settings.
In a bid to crack down on harmful content online, including child abuse images and hate speech, ministers want the media regulator, Ofcom, to be able to ask platforms to monitor users. This would include "mandatory oversight into all elements of user interactions", said Social Media Today, something critics claim would "open the door to trying to force technology companies to break end-to-end encryption on private messaging services".
In what the publication called a "last ditch effort" to get the government to amend its bill, WhatsApp (owned by Facebook parent company Meta), Signal, Element, Threema, Session, Viber and Wire have signed an open letter claiming the proposed legislation "poses an unprecedented threat to the privacy, safety and security of every UK citizen and the people with whom they communicate around the world, while emboldening hostile governments who may seek to draft copy-cat laws".
It ultimately comes down to whether it is possible to have both privacy and child safety online, a "debate that has seen consecutive Conservative Party governments ping-pong between more onerous restrictions", sad Politico. |
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GETTING TO GRIPS WITH . . . | | Ticket prices for flights are expected to rise in the coming years as the airline industry wrestles with the costs of reaching net zero by 2050.
European aviation alone is expected to spend "a whopping €820 billion" to reach net zero, Bloomberg reported. Factors include changes to the European Union's Emissions Trading System (EU ETS), and the need to invest in cleaner technologies, all of which will dramatically slash profit margins.
Until airlines can fully decarbonise, these pressures mean "waving goodbye to the low prices that made globetrotting accessible to millions of people", said Bloomberg. With summer flights already a third more expensive than last year, according to travel search engine Kayak, returning to the pre-pandemic norm of cheap flights is increasingly looking like a long shot. |
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profile | | The 85-year-old author is set for Hollywood acclaim at last |
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| The British have a reputation of shying away from talking about money, but is that true? Download our guide to find out. |
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WHAT THE SCIENTISTS ARE SAYING… | | Bees tend to be regarded as among the more "hardworking" pollinators, and they have been the focus of much of the research into declining insect populations. But according to a new study, night-flying moths are the more efficient pollinators. A team from the University of Sussex used camera traps to monitor ten bramble patches in the southeast of England in July 2021. They found that 83% of insect visits to bramble flowers were made during the day, and that in these short summer nights, night-flying moths notched up only 15% of the visits. However, the moths pollinated the flowers more efficiently, and were therefore making a significant contribution in the hours of darkness. "Bees are undoubtedly important, but our work has shown that moths pollinate flowers faster than day-flying insects," said study co-author Prof Fiona Mathews. "Sadly, many moths are in serious decline in Britain, affecting not just pollination but also food supplies for many other species, ranging from bats to birds." She added that the study also highlighted the importance of bramble patches – which are often regarded as unsightly and cleared away – as a source of food for moths and as critical for night-time pollinators.
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statistic of the week | | An average of 51 pubs a month have closed down in England and Wales this year.
The Guardian |
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| picture of the day | | A man in Mumbai shows Apple CEO Tim Cook an old Macintosh computer during the launch of Apple's first retail store in India.
Punit Paranjpe/AFP via Getty Images
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Good week for... | Chickens, who were allowed outside again after avian flu restrictions in the UK were lifted today. Poultry and captive birds have been on "flockdown" since November, but birdkeepers are still being warned to take extra precautions to limit the risk of the disease spreading. | |
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Bad week for... | Tough Mudder, after it was banned from Finsbury Park in north London. In scenes likened to the Battle of Somme, grass at the park was churned to mud and marked with tyre tracks during the endurance event at the weekend. | |
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PUZZLES | | Test your general knowledge with The Week's daily crossword, part of our puzzles section |
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instant opinion | | Your digest of analysis from the British and international press from the past seven days
Play at the World Snooker Championship was disrupted last night when a Just Stop Oil activist covered a snooker table in orange powder paint as another "tried –and failed – to glue herself" to a different table, says Tom Slater in The Spectator. "Meanwhile, enraged snooker fans everywhere are trying to work out what on Earth their sport has got to do with climate change." Yet while "we could speculate", he writes, ultimately "the scenes at the Crucible were just another ridiculous attempt to preach the eco-gospel, from a group convinced the world is coming to an end and that almost anything is justified to try to prevent mass death". Such campaigns "to save Mother Nature" rarely seem to target government or fossil-fuel firms. Instead, these "over-educated killjoys seem intent on imposing their lifestyle, morality and preoccupations on the rest of us". The endpoint is a "world in which we are all as miserable as they are", argues Slater. "Never let them win." |
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| THE BIG TRIP | | Attractions, events and experiences to mark the crowning of Charles III |
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DOWN TO BUSINESS | Tuesday afternoon markets | Gold moved back above the $2,000 mark amid a weaker US dollar. Sterling rallied against the dollar and euro after the Office for National Statistics released its March labour and wage data showing a rise in headline wages.
FTSE 100: 7,904.49, up 0.32%
Dax: 15,864.99, up 0.48%
Dow: 33,850.48, down 0.40%
Dollar: £1 = $1.2434, up 0.48%
Euro: £1 = €1.1338, up 0.13%
Brent crude: $84.54, down 0.26%
Gold: $2,001.40, up 0.36% | |
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WIT & WISDOM | "So difficult it is to show the various meanings and imperfections of words when we have nothing else but words to do it with." | John Locke, quoted on Substack | |
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