Fight for the Future, Access Now, the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU), Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), and other leading human rights organizations are demanding Meta immediately course correct and make good on promises to protect Instagram DMs with end-to-end encryption by default.Led ...
Civil Libertiesorganizations are demanding Meta immediately course correct and make good on promises to protect Instagram DMs with end-to-end encryption by default. Led by Fight for the Future, 50 human rights groups are expressing outrage over Meta’s decision to discontinue “opt-in” end-to-end encryption for Instagram messages, as well as its apparent reversal of plans to protect Instagram messages with end-to-end encryption by default.
The groups sentto Meta calling on the company to immediately course correct and follow through on promises to ensure users’ direct messages are safe from third-party access. Meta’s removal of “opt-in end-to-end encryption” for direct messages on Instagram—a feature only available to users in certain regions—”Meta has repeatedly articulated the importance of end-to-end encryption, sometimes mirroring the exact language our organizations have used for years to explain why online messagesbe protected and private.
Does Meta expect us to simply forget this history? Does the company expect us to accept the absurd justification that ‘users aren’t interested in E2EE’ when Meta knows very well we shouldn’t be forced to opt-in to life-saving privacy features? ” said Leila Nashashibi, Campaigner at Fight for the Future.
“Meta has defended E2EE in the past, even when it wasn’t politically convenient. Clearly the company’s political calculus has shifted. Is Meta axing its E2EE plans in order to curry favor with Trump, who wants unfettered access to our messages so his administration can spy on us and target us? Or does the company believe that the profit potential of violating our privacy and harvesting our most sensitive information—our private messages—is simply too great to pass up?
We deserve to know the truth behind this total betrayal of users’ safety and privacy. We’re calling on organizations and users all over the world to reject this shameful move. If Meta wants to keep its Instagram users, it must make DMs safe NOW. ” ”Secure E2EE messaging is a BASIC digital need and right.
Several years ago, we joined in asking Meta to encrypt DMs. As Meta has acknowledged, privacy online is actually critical to people’s safety online AND offline. Now, Meta says they’re rolling this safety measure back after offering E2EE as a difficult to find optional setting? That’s so disingenuous and disappointing,” said Maya Morales of WA People’s Privacy.
“If Meta wants people to use its platforms, it has to ensure that using them doesn’t actively endanger us. Without encryption, our personal conversations have been fed straight to government agencies or officials we might critique, to DHS/ICE, to data brokers, into AI models, you name it. This is not a trivial issue. Unsecured DMs can—apps that offer messaging, and AI should never be used in ANY messaging service without non-coerced, opt-in consent.
If Meta’s not going to keep users safe, is it prepared for a mass-exodus? ”in December 2023.
The move came after public outcry and pressure in response to Meta handing over unencrypted Messenger direct messages between a Nebraska teenager and her mother to law enforcement—messages that led to the teen’s In the months preceding the December 2023 announcement, Rob Sherman, VP and Deputy Chief Privacy Officer for Policy at Meta,to Fight for the Future stating: “We remain committed to rolling out default end-to-end encryption for private conversations on Messenger in 2023, and shortly afterwards for Instagram. ”companies to provide the best security to protect their personal information, and we believe end-to-end is an important component of building trust with our users because it:Helps prevent both serious and common crimes like hacking and identity theft.
Enables journalists, civil society, religious groups, scholars, and artists to exercise their rights to free and private speech without surveillance or retaliation. Meta’s backtracking on its end-to-end encryption commitments comes on the heals of yet another disappointing decision: On May 5, Metathat the company will be “developing” a tool that can determine a user’s age based on visual, physical characteristics.
Under the guise of kids safety, this will mean scanning every single picture posted on the platform to determine people’s ages, with no guardrails. Fight for the Future has been warning for years that online ID checks in all of its forms, regardless of the public relations term in use is aFight for the Future is a group of artists, engineers, activists, and technologists who have been behind the largest online protests in human history, channeling Internet outrage into political power to win public interest victories previously thought to be impossible.
We fight for a future where technology liberates -- not oppresses -- us.
"The only realistic path to a diplomatic breakthrough would require Washington to engage more directly with the structure and substance of the Iranian proposal itself," said a national security expert.of the war on Iran linked to President Donald Trump's plummeting approval rating, the president issued his latest threat to destroy the Middle Eastern country Sunday as he demanded negotiators "get moving, FAST" to end the conflict the US and Israel began by choice in February.the president in a Truth Social post, adding that if a peace deal is not reached soon, "there won’t be anything left of them. TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE!
”to have separate nuclear talks after achieving peace and reaching a deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, which the Iranians effectively closed in retaliation for the US-Israeli attacks. Since launching the conflict, Trump has demanded the dismantling of Iran's missile arsenal as well as its nuclear program, which Iran has said is not for military purposes, and has called for the country to cut ties with its regional allies.
Iran's Mehr news agency said Sunday that Trump had offered "no tangible concessions" in his response to the Iranians' latest proposal. ," said the news outlet, "wants to obtain concessions that it failed to obtain during the war, which will lead to an impasse in the negotiations.
"Fox News in Beijing over the weekend that the Iranians are "crazy, and you know what? Because of that, they cannot have a nuclear weapon," explaining why he viewed it as "unacceptable" for nuclear talks to take place separately after a peace deal is brokered. Sunday about the possibility of renewing strikes on Iran, which would break a ceasefire that was reached more than a month ago.
"Iran’s priorities remain consistent: ending what it views as economic siege conditions, reopening maritime access and reducing pressure in the Gulf, negotiating an end to the broader conflict, and only afterward addressing the nuclear issue," said Citrinowicz. "At the present moment, it is difficult to see the Iranian leadership agreeing to any framework that does not meaningfully engage with those core demands.
"that Iran's entire civilization would die, "never to be brought back again," Iranian officials said the president's latest comments—which followed hisof an image of himself on a military ship accompanied by the words, "It was the calm before the storm"—would not be tolerated. A spokesperson for Iran's armed forces, Abolfazl Shakarchi, told Mehr that "repeating any folly to compensate for America’s disgrace in the Third Imposed War against Iran will result in nothing but receiving more crushing and severe blows.
"Trump to "hurt them more" in order to force a deal, calling on the president to go through with bombing Iran's energyThe reason why Trump didn't do this during the war - despite threatening it - was because he realized Tehran would retaliate and take out the energy infrastructure in the GCC states. This would…"The reason why Trump didn't do this during the war—despite threatening it—was because he realized Tehran would retaliate and take out the energy infrastructure in the states,""The global economy would be thrown into a deep recession.
Fuel shortages would lead to food shortages worldwide. Trump's presidency would be destroyed," he said.
"None of this matters to Lindsey. He'll burn the entire planet as long as he gets his war. Trump's biggest mistake has been to listen to Lindsey and his allies.
"Trump Admin Claims of Cuban Plans for Drone Attacks Denounced as 'Ludicrous Pretext' for War "Like any country, Cuba has the right to defend itself against external aggression," said the Cuban embassy. "It is called self-defense, and it is protected by International Law and the UN Charter.
"is making "increasingly implausible accusations" against the country as it pushes to justify, "without any excuse, a military attack againstBut in Axios' article, the Trump administration official took pains to push the notion that the US, with its nearly $1 trillion-per-year military, could face attacks from the tiny Caribbean nation 90 miles south of Florida because officials there have been preparing defensive capabilities. Axios reported that, according to classified intelligence it viewed, Cuba has acquired more than 300 drones and has been considering plans to attack the The country has been acquiring drones from Russia and Iran since 2023 and has sought more aid from Russia in recent months, according to the report.
Intelligence intercepts have also shown Cuba is "trying to learn about how Iran has resisted us," the official said, referring to Iran's use of unmanned aircraft, its closure of the Strait of Hormuz, and its attacks on US military outposts in the Middle East in response to the US-Israel war on the country that began in February. The Cuban embassy further responded with a reminder that "like any country, Cuba has the right to defend itself against external aggression.
" "Those from the US who seek the submission and, in fact, the destruction of the Cuban nation through military aggression and war, do not waste a single moment fabricating pretexts, creating and spreading falsehoods, and distorting as extraordinary the logical preparation required to face a potential aggression," said the embassy. "It would be arguably be wise for Cuba to incorporate a tool that has proven to be an extraordinary effective weapon and a powerful tool of dissuasion as part of its self-defense strategy," said Granados Ceja.
US officials don't believe Cuba is an imminent threat, or actively planning to attack American interests.
" Rather, the intelligence showed that Cuban officials "have been discussing drone warfare plans in case hostilities erupt as relations with the US continue to deteriorate"—suggesting they could use drones in self-defense if attacked by the US.for attacking Iran in February. He stunned legal experts days after the war began by explaining that the US had decided to wage war on the Middle Eastern country because it feared Iran would retaliate after Israel began attacking it.
"The imminent threat was that we knew that if Iran was attacked, and we believed they would be attacked, that they would immediately come after us," Rubio said. The claim that Cuba's reported preparations make the island a threat to US security "is a lie—with purpose,"and his stenographers at Axios are manufacturing consent for the invasion of Cuba," said Adler.
"To fall for this flimsy propaganda is to fail the most basic test of civic literacy. And the stakes are millions of Cuban lives off our coast.
"to Cuba to pressure officials into complying with US demands, likely including political and economic reforms, heightening fears that the US could be planning a military attack unless the country complies.to criminally indict former Cuban President Raúl Castro for shooting down planes that belonged to a US group that had flown into Cuba's airspace in the 1990s. In January, US forces invadedand abducted President Nicolás Maduro, bringing him to the US where he was charged with drug trafficking, and pleaded not guilty.
The latest," he said of the Axios article, "is this blatant effort to launder a pretext for war through the mediaPublic Health Experts Point to Trump Aid Cuts as WHO Declares Emergency Over Ebola Outbreak in DRC, Ugandadisease was spreading at all—a highly unusual chain of events, public health experts said, and one that suggested the virus has been circulating for weeks without the outbreak being detected. WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Sunday that eight laboratory-confirmed cases, 246 suspected cases, and 80 suspected deaths had been reported in at least three health zones across Ituri Province in the DRC.
In Kampala, the densely populated capital of neighboring Uganda, two lab-confirmed cases and one death were reported within 24 hours of each other. The confirmed cases in Congo include some that have been reported in Kinshasa, the capital.
The fact that the disease has been able to spread to two large cities with international airports, and the "clusters of deaths across the province of Ituri" point to "a potentially much larger outbreak than what is currently being detected and reported, with significant local and regional risk of spread," said WHO.in a clinical context suggestive of viral haemorrhagic fever have been reported from the affected area, raising concerns regarding healthcare-associated transmission, gaps in infection prevention and control measures, and the potential for amplification within health facilities," the agency said. We're just hearing about this now?
That makes no sense. Those numbers take weeks to accumulate ," said Jha, adding that the fact that suspected cases have been detected in capital cities as well as Bunia, the provincial capital of Ituri, "matters enormously for spread.
" Tedros emphasized that the outbreak is considered "extraordinary" because there is no approved vaccine or therapeutics for Ebola caused by the Bundibugyo virus, as this strain is. WHOa team to investigate in Ituri after first being notified of suspected Ebola cases on May 5, but initial samples tested negative, as available field equipment was only able to detect the Zaire strain of the disease.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and global partners "need to surge resources in," Jha said.
"A slow response creates unnecessary risks to people everywhere. "withdrew the US from last year, said the public health emergency designation was made to ramp up surveillance and infection prevention in the countries where the outbreak is occurring, enhance preparedness in bordering countries, and spread awareness in the international community. Uganda since Trump slashed foreign assistance funding, including by dismantling the US Agency for International Development.
Earlier this month, CNNIn March 2025, when an Ebola outbreak was reported in Uganda, US officials warned that Trump's actions on foreign assistance at that point, including the termination of USAID grants, was impeding the Ugandan government's ability to procure lab supplies, diagnostic equipment, and protective gear for medical workers.at the time that the country's ability to respond to Ebola was notably different than it had been during a previous outbreak in 2022, when dozens of medical workers volunteered to help treat patients. The lack of funds and protective equipment had "left many afraid to help this time," the Times reported.
Trump administration "The CDC would have been on the ground at a moment's notice, maybe even before a moment's notice, of a new outbreak of Ebola because we were in a bunch of countries," said Spencer.
"We created relationships beforehand. "had "accidentally" canceled US support for Ebola prevention but claimed the funding had been "restored...and there was no interruption.
” But a number of Ebola-related contracts were in fact cut, accounting for $1.6 million out of $2.2 million that had previously gone toward the prevention efforts.that Trump's cuts to the CDC and other public health programs have left the US ill-prepared to respond to the hantavirus outbreak that originated on a cruise ship.the current Ebola outbreak is "very worrying" and appeared to be the result of a "massive surveillance failure.
" "It is really unusual for an Ebola outbreak to get to this scale before being detected; particularly in DRC, which has a lot of Ebola experience," said Konyndyk. WHO emphasized that the current crisis in DRC and Uganda requires "international coordination and cooperation to understand the extent of the outbreak, to coordinate surveillance, prevention, and response efforts, to scale up and strengthen operations and ensure ability to implement control measures.
"New York Mayor Mamdani Applauded for Closing $12 Billion Budget Deficit Without Austerity MeasuresAs AIPAC Spends Millions to Oust Him, Massie Unveils Bill Requiring Pro-Israel Lobby to Register as Foreign AgentTrump Admin Claims of Cuban Plans for Drone Attacks Denounced as 'Ludicrous Pretext' for WarTrump Cries 'Virtual Treason' as US News Outlets Detail Iran War Intel Assessments
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