Mon Apr 24, 2023 – 5:40 pm EDTMon Apr 24, 2023 – 5:45 pm EDT
(LifeSiteNews) — In an open letter from April 17, seven senior social media executives warned that U.K. government plans to outlaw private messaging may see WhatsApp leave the U.K. entirely.
The head of Facebook-owned WhatsApp, Will Cathcart, issued a statement along with the heads of popular services Wire, Viber, Threema, Element, and Signal to warn that the forthcoming “Online Safety Bill” presents a grave threat to privacy in the U.K., providing a template for censorship and surveillance worldwide.
“In short, the Bill poses an unprecedented threat to the privacy, safety and security of every U.K. citizen and the people with whom they communicate around the world, while emboldening hostile governments who may seek to draft copy-cat laws,” the statement reads.
READ: UK online censorship bill could ban ‘legal but harmful’ content under guise of protecting children
Whilst no action has yet been taken, it is widely believed that these companies are serious about their intentions to halt operations in the U.K., should they be legally compelled to remove their end-to-end encryption of user messages. As the letter says:
The UK government
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