Explainer: Westminster’s WhatsApp problem
In the UK, WhatsApp is the most used social media platform, with just under 75 per cent of 16 to 64-year-old’s using the app. It ranks above Facebook Messenger, which comes in third, and Instagram and Twitter. Apple’s iMessage, in comparison, has a user base of just 35.4 per cent.
But millions of Brits could be left without their favourite app as ministers continue to push ahead with reforms which would require encrypted apps to hand over private messages to identify perpetrators of child sexual abuse.
Will Cathcart, the boss of WhatsApp, has said he would rather bow out of the UK completely than break its encryption. Ditto for similar apps like Signal.
Ministers are trying to dial down the heat between the government and tech companies, but it’s difficult to do so without unravelling key parts of the Online Safety Bill.
Tech firms are used to squaring up to governments. In Australia, Google threatened to pull out of the country over a regulations which forced them to pay news organisations for their content. The law went ahead and Google backed down. Indeed, Google has since then invested millions of pounds into the country.
Michelle Donelan, the Technology Secretary, has said the measure would be a “last resort”.
It’s only the latest thorn to come out of the Online Safety Bill, which has been controversial almost from the moment it came into being, with a series of fights over claims it was trying to “censor” the internet, but banning “legal but harmful” content.
Eventually, the legal but harmful requirement was dropped to try and appease critics.
Unlike the censorship concerns, there is little sympathy for tech firms who simply don’t want to play ball over encryption. They insist that if there is a way to break encryption for legal purposes, it will be used for malicious reasons. But there have been a series of proposals put forward in order to protect privacy, whilst also allowing a way for authorities to crack encryption.
For anyone even marginally familiar with the inner workings of Westminster, you’ll know how much of politics is conducted by WhatsApp. If the tech companies throw the baby out with the bath water, MPs might have to buy Blackberries and go back to BBM.