2y ago

Facebook turns over mother and daughter’s chat history to police resulting in abortion charges

www.theverge.com

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/1874605

A 17-year-old from Nebraska and her mother are facing criminal charges including performing an illegal abortion and concealing a dead body after police obtained the pair’s private chat history from Facebook, court documents published by Motherboard show.

France @lemmy.world

Camus (il, lui) @jlai.lu

2y ago

Facebook transmet à la police l'historique des conversations de la mère et de la fille, ce qui donne lieu à des accusations d'avortement

www.theverge.com /2022/8/10/23299502/facebook-chat-messenger-history-nebraska-teen-abortion-case

Technology @lemmy.world

Jure Repinc @lemmy.ml

2y ago

Facebook turns over mother and daughter’s chat history to police resulting in abortion charges

www.theverge.com /2022/8/10/23299502/facebook-chat-messenger-history-nebraska-teen-abortion-case

Technology @lemmy.ml

Jure Repinc @lemmy.ml

2y ago

Facebook turns over mother and daughter’s chat history to police resulting in abortion charges

www.theverge.com /2022/8/10/23299502/facebook-chat-messenger-history-nebraska-teen-abortion-case

74 comments

We need to be clear here. Don't hate Meta/Facebook for complying with a legal search warrant. That's the law. Hate Meta/Facebook for having the ability to hand over private chat messages at all. End-to-End Encryption is the only answer. It's not about trust, it's about the ability.
- That's the law.
  Yeah, I don't buy that, not when you have the obscene money and power that Meta has. They could have fought it and resisted, but they didn't. This is the same company that literally just stole a trademark and absolutely nothing meaningful happened to them because of it.
  
  You don't buy that it's the law?
  not when you have the obscene money and power that Meta has. They could have fought it and resisted,
  What you're saying is because Meta is rich, they don't have to obey the law?
  
  They could have said okay here you g… oooops jeez it’s gone. Wow how did that happen. Oh well.
  They’re a branch of the government at this point. Call it investing in avoiding the kind of scrutiny they should have been under the moment they started psychological experiments on the public.
  They admitted to it but I don’t see Zuck the fuck in jail do you?
- Facebook supports E2E encrypted chats but you have to enable it, similar to Telegram. Whatsapp uses E2EE by default.
- Hate american legislative / politics instead? Don't hate the player, hate the game?
  You're right. e2ee is a good thing.
I get very frustrated with the people who side with the govt here because it was a 7 month foetus. Just because it is 7 months rather than 5 or 6 doesn't suddenly mean the government should be able to coerce the use of someone's body as an incubator against their will.
Feels like people just don't give a shit about bodily autonomy and such :/ nya
- I think the argument is that at 7 months that’s a viable human and it has rights on its own.
  
  It doesn’t have rights until it slides out of the vagina or cesarean section. Until that moment it’s none of anyone’s business but the mother.
  And it’s not the government or Facebook or any fucking one else’s place to criminalize this, or to presume to have a right to have any say in the matter.
  I’m a male white democrat but I don’t even lean as far left as many fellow liberals. I’m close to left center. Nevertheless, it astounds me how many people put a line where the baby “could” potentially survive. So what? It’s still in the mother’s body it’s still part of her body. And it’s nobody else’s right to have any say about it whatsoever - except arguably a minor vote to the father, a little bit. But ultimately this whole criminalization is not about life at all, but about politics and economics.
  
  That's a separate discussion on its own as for some 1 second old human is one with their own rights. But then in Belarus there is a lot of things that are illegal and we consider normal, like saying your leader is corrupt. Should META comply just because it is local law?
  At the end of the day it seems we just can not trust anything that isn't encrypted.
  
  If someone attached themselves to your body transfusion-like, and used your organs, do you think they have the right to do that against your will if they would die by being detached from your body? I.E do you think the state should have the right to lock you in a cell to prevent you from detaching your transfusion tube from that person?
The elimination of Roe has brought many states back to the stone ages…
For all we know these girl could have been raped by a family member, or other bad actor and the mother was just helping the only way she knew how.
I am sure this was extremely scarring and emotional for the mother and daughter, and now the state wants to charge them for murder…
- The baby was aborted at 7 months- it was very close to being a fully formed babby, a far cry from aborting in the first couple months.
  Afaik abortion at that stage was already illegal in many areas.
  
  Funny how everyone in this thread knows exactly how healthy that foetus was.
  
  formed babby
  it was on the news this mroing
  
  Ah shit my bad I did not realize that from the article! I take part of it back hahah.
- The state this happened in didn’t change their abortion policy when roe v wade was appealed though.
  I’m pro abortion, but not at 28 weeks. A baby can survive at 28 weeks. Not only did they cause an abortion, they then illegally disposed of a dead body.
  
  I'm for abortion in emergencies, such as any time an expectant mother feels like it's necessary. Women are not mindless incubators and shouldn't be treated like them under the law.
Fuck Meta
- This quote should be higher. Everyone defending Meta, Elon, or Google obviously has a financial interest in doing so. These companies and individuals are sub human trash
This is an infuriating story for sure, but I just want to clarify for anybody just seeing it for the first time that it happened in 2022.
- I knew it sounded familiar. I remember this.
  Honestly though, if anything things have only gotten worse not better.
  
  It terrifies me! This news was shocking for about three days. Now, a year later, we know law enforcement is buying info from data brokers and google has gone back on their “promise” to delete sensitive location data for people who visit abortion clinics. And it’s just crickets from lawmakers, nothing from regulators, except that maybe we should ban one specific app. I knew the fourth amendment wasn’t real anymore after prism but dear god it just keeps escalating with every year of my adulthood. Panopticon ass country.
One of the many, many, many reasons to keep Meta out of the Fediverse if it can be managed.
- How do we know that Fediverse will be any different? After all if it is a law and you get a legal subponae, you comply with it.
  
  It probably wouldn't be.
  The thing is, Meta has the money and power to fight against injustices like this, but instead, they're complicit, and I'd prefer their corrupting influence stay far, far away from the fediverse.
  
  Agree. People like to act like Lemmy is a utopia where privacy is always protected and what not. The fact is when it comes down to it, the admins have to comply with the law. If a warrant shows up at their door, they got no choice but to give up information.
  
  From an opsec standpoint, certainly. Or they'll kick in your door like the Kolektiva admin. Definitely best to use end to end encryption if you have any need to protect yourself from state actors. But also fuck meta
I work for an agency that works with victims of crime. State and federal laws allow for privileged, confidential communication. We have had people ask for help via social media. This is very concerning.
- I would honestly hope you bring it up to your agency to start offering chat channels that are end to end encrypted and have all history wiped clean after certain period of time.
  
  I shared the article this morning and we have all been discussing this. One option is to request they immediately switch to Whatsapp and delete the FB message. The good part, is that our state coalition is already looking into this.
Facebook is a den of depravity and malice. And Nebraska. Thank God I'm not living there, what a waste of taxpayer dollars. They're gonna throw the mom and kid in jail in with the actual rapists, murderers, convicted priests, and anyone else unlucky enough to have had a miscarriage in a backwards state.
If you have the funds, move to a different state like I did. And delete Facebook like I did in November 2016.
I'm sure this is completely fine.
This is a tough one. Let’s replace abortion with a crime, robbery? If someone stole your grand pappys rolex and talked about it on Meta, I think most would agree that it was proper. If people talked about assaulting someone, most would agree that it’s proper as well. Add a late term abortion into the conversation, it becomes controversial.
Edit*
Others are correct the tech page isn’t the place to debate medical stuff.
I think if a crime is committed via the law, Facebook should comply. If there wasn’t political component, this wouldn’t even be a conversation.
- Stupid to talk about anything on Facebook.
  If it had been phone company turning over text messages then I’d be livid. But seriously who fucking trusts Facebook with that kind of thing? After everything they’ve done that’s been proven why would anyone trust them with an iota of private information?
Not that I’m cool with this, or that awareness isn’t good, but has there really been no new developments and nothing new to say about this in 11 months? Did they get charged? Convicted? Has anyone else faced this issue since then? Facebook hasn’t had a comment since then?
- https://www.ktiv.com/2023/05/22/18-year-old-charged-northeast-nebraska-abortion-case-takes-plea-deal/
  The daughter plead guilty, scheduled to Jul 20th for sentencing. The mother is going to trial on the 14th. If convicted, she'll get another sentencing hearing.
The two women told detective Ben McBride of the Norfolk, Nebraska Police Division that they’d discussed the matter on Facebook Messenger
... why would they do that?

74 comments