Facebook ‘morally bankrupt’ on protecting kids: Peter Dutton

Peter Dutton hits out at Facebook as it pushes ahead with an end-to-end encryption plan for messaging services.

Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton has taken aim at Facebook’s plan for end-to-end encryption. Picture: Kym Smith

Facebook’s claim that one of its top priorities is keeping people safe is an insult and “spin”, Peter Dutton says, as the tech giant moves ahead with plans to encrypt all of its messaging services.

Australia, the US and Britain have urged Facebook not to proceed with end-to-end encryption across WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger without allowing “lawful access” to the content.

After Facebook rejected the ­request, the Home Affairs Minister said Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg was “morally bankrupt on the issue of encryption and ­protecting children”.

“These companies have the ability to shift the dial, but instead behave like the tobacco companies of the 1960s,” Mr Dutton said. “They know with certainty their actions are causing harm and they pretend it isn’t happening

“Mark Zuckerberg … and other CEOs would not tolerate bullying and sexual harassment or exploitation in their workplace, and they would champion the empowerment of women, but at the same time they tolerate the use of their platforms for the sexual exploitation of children, predominantly young girls; many of whom will be physically and mentally scarred, in many cases for life.”

Speaking in Ethiopia at a global summit to tackle online child sexual exploitation, Mr Dutton called on the tech giants and other companies to reconsider any “hasty plans” to design or redesign their systems that precluded access to content.

The demand comes as the Morrison government orders digital platforms to strike a deal with media companies within a year to pay for their content. If a voluntary code of conduct is not agreed to by next November, the government has said it will mandate new rules governing the ­behaviour of tech giants.

Mr Dutton blasted Facebook’s response to a letter he sent in ­October with British Home Secretary Priti Patel and US ­Attorney-General William Barr appealing to the company not to introduce end-to-end encryption, saying Mr Zuckerberg “did not even have the decency to ­respond”.

“The response was from the vice-presidents who head up WhatsApp and Messenger, who advise that the privacy of their users is paramount to their business,” he said. “They claim, and I quote, that ‘keeping people safe is one of our biggest priorities at Facebook’. Well it is nothing more than public relations spin and, frankly to all, an insult.

“Are they forgetting the millions of children who will never be kept safe when end-to-end ­encryption is adopted as standard practice?

“Do they think that by ‘going dark’ they will be absolving themselves of responsibility for despicable criminal acts that take place on their platforms?”

A Facebook spokesman said the company had “absolutely zero tolerance” for any behaviour or material that exploited children.

“We deploy sophisticated technology across all of our platforms to proactively find and remove as much child exploitative content as we can, and work with local and international law enforcement to take action on perpetrators,” the spokesman said.

“Our 35,000-strong safety and security team and billion-dollar investments in advanced technology now removes 99.5 per cent of exploitation content before anyone reports it, oftentimes as soon as someone tries to upload it.”