Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has expressed his company’s support for Apple in its dispute with the FBI concerning the potential weakening of the encryption of a gunman’s iPhone.
During an interview with WIRED writer Jessi Hempel at the Mobile World Congress in Spain, Zuckerberg said: “We’re sympathetic with Apple on this one. We believe in encryption”. He said that Facebook was willing to help in the anti-terror fight, but not by undermining its users’ security.
He pointed out that Facebook was open to, among other measures combating terrorism, removing “any content that’s promoting terrorism or sympathizing with ISIS”. Nonetheless, he added: “I don’t think requiring backdoors into encryption is either going to be an effective way to increase security or is really the right thing to do for the direction the world is going in.”
Google CEO Sundar Pichai also announced his backing for Apple last Wednesday, saying on Twitter that “to enable hacking of customer devices and data” could set “a troubling precedent”.
