Depends on your definition of "safe". Imagine an adult DMs a nude photo to a minor (or other kinds of predation).

If it's E2EE, no one except the sender and receiver know about this conversation. You want an MITM in this case to detect/block such things or at least keep record of what's going on for a subpoena.

I agree that every messaging platform in the world shouldn't be MITM'd, but every messaging platform doesn't need to be E2EE'd either.

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shakna 7 hours ago | parent | next [-]

The receiver has a proven and signed bundle, that they can upload to the abuse report. So the evidence has even stronger weight. They can already decrypt the message, they can still report it.

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michaelmior 7 hours ago | parent [-]

Yes, but this leaves the only way to identify this behavior as by reporting from a minor. I'm not saying I trust TikTok to only do good things with access to DMs, but I think it's a fair argument in this scenario to say that a platform has a better opportunity to protect minors if messages aren't encrypted.

I'm not saying no E2E messaging apps should exist, but maybe it doesn't need to for minors in social media apps. However, an alternative could be allowing the sharing of the encryption key with a parent so that there is the ability for someone to monitor messages.

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danlitt 7 hours ago | parent [-]

> I think it's a fair argument in this scenario to say that a platform has a better opportunity to protect minors if messages aren't encrypted

Would it be a fair argument to say the police have a better opportunity to prevent crimes if they can enter your house without a warrant? People are paranoid about this sort of thing not because they think law enforcement is more effective when it is constrained. But how easily crimes can be prosecuted is only one dimension of safety.

> However, an alternative could be allowing the sharing of the encryption key with a parent

Right, but this is worlds apart from "sharing the encryption key with a private company", is it not?

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InsomniacL 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> Would it be a fair argument to say the police have a better opportunity to prevent crimes if they can enter your house without a warrant?

Police can access your home with a warrant.

Police cannot access your E2EE DMs with a warrant.

	▲	danlitt an hour ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Not answering my question! > Police cannot access your E2EE DMs with a warrant. They can and do, regularly. What they can't do is prevent you from deleting your DMs if you know you're under investigation and likely to be caught. But refusing to give up encryption keys and supiciously empty chat histories with a valid warrant is very good evidence of a crime in itself. They also can't prevent you from flushing drugs down the toilet, but somehow people are still convicted for drug-related crimes all the time. So - yes, obviously, the police could prosecute more crimes if we gave up this protection. That's how limitations on police power work.
	▲	allreduce 5 hours ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		And they shouldn't be able to. Police accessing DMs is more like "listening to every conversation you ever had in your house (and outside)" than "entering your house".
	▲	cucumber3732842 5 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		>Police cannot access your E2EE DMs with a warrant. Well the kind of can if they nab your cell phone or other device that has a valid access token. I think it's kind of analogous to the police getting at one's safe. You might have removed the contents before they got there but that's your prerogative. I think this results in acceptable tradeoffs.

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gzread 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Yes, that is a fair argument and most countries allow the use of surveillance cameras in public for this reason.

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roughly 24 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

What was the rate of child exploitation in the GDR?

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gzread 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

SimpleX handles this by sending the decryption keys when the receiver reports the message.

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khalic 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Keeping children safe and prosecuting are too different concepts, only vaguely related. So no, being able to track pdfs doesn't make children safer. What keeps them safe is teaching them safe communication habits and keeping them away from things like Tiktok.

We shouldn't make the world a worse place for every one because some parents can't take care of their children.

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cucumber3732842 5 hours ago | parent [-]

>Keeping children safe and prosecuting are too different concepts, only vaguely related.

See also: That time the FBI took over a CSAM site and kept it running so they could nab a bunch of users.

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Ajedi32 4 hours ago | parent [-]

Not necessarily saying what they did was right, but I think there's a strong utilitarian argument to be made that what they did in that case was, in fact, the best way to keep children safe.

What's more dangerous? CSAM on the internet? Or actual child predators running loose?

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cucumber3732842 3 hours ago | parent [-]

That stuff spreads and re-spreads just like anything else people download off the internet. There's a pretty strong argument for shutting it down right away. IIRC most users were outside jurisdiction.

	▲	integralid 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Even if one more person was prosecuted it was worth it. If you shut down an illegal website a new one will show up a month later, with the same people involved, and you achieved nothing.

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kgwxd 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Ugh. The kids aren't even safe from the people making, and enforcing laws. This argument should be long over for anyone with eyes or ears.

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philipallstar 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Imagine Hamas are your government and want to figure out who's gay. You don't want a MITM in case they can do this.

Pick your definition of safe.

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trashb 7 hours ago | parent | next [-]

In that case don't use Tiktok dm's to discuss your sexuality. I think it is strange that people feel like they have to be able to talk on sensitive topics over every interface they can get their hands on.

Similarly in "traditional" media you may not want to discuss such private conversation on a radio broadcast. Perhaps you would rather discuss it on the phone or over snail mail as there is more of an expectation of privacy on those medium.

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roughly 22 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

Right, but it currently isn't a sensitive topic - homosexuality is, as of 2026, broadly legal in the United States. That's a relatively new state of affairs, historically speaking, and one which Afghanistan shared as recently as 2021.

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philipallstar 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I'm commenting in the context of the conversation, not in a vacuum. You could just as (in fact, much more) easily say that children shouldn't be on apps with private messaging enabled. That would help a lot more, and then we could keep e2ee.

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danlitt 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> there is more of an expectation of privacy on those medium

What does the "p" in "pm" stand for?

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trashb 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

excuse me, I confused "Private messages" (pm) for "Direct messages" (dm).

I will update above

	▲	danlitt an hour ago \| parent [-]
		I don't think you confused anything, except for the terminology the platform uses. There is an obvious expectation of privacy when sending direct messages!

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gzread 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

it stands for "not a public timeline post"

	▲	danlitt an hour ago \| parent [-]
		It should be obvious from how contrived your wording is that nobody thinks of them this way.

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miki123211 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

This is fine if you have TLS encryption and the platform is not local.

Sure, they can fabricate some evidence and get access to your messages, in which case, valid point.