LETTER: "CRIMINALS' CRYPTIC ADS WERE 'LEGAL BYT HARMFUL' TOO"
CAN BAŞKENT
I have read with great interest the report by Tim Bradshaw and others entitled “Tech sector alarmed at Patel push to monitor ‘legal but harmful’ content” (Report, February 16).
It reminded me of a plethora of thriller movies I have watched where the criminals would communicate using classified ads in newspapers. The classifieds would be legal whereas the encrypted content was harmful. I wonder what Priti Patel, the UK home secretary, would do in such circumstances.
I have always thought that we need to protect the internet from the big four tech groups — Alphabet, Amazon, Apple and Meta — as they have disproportionate power, with no real liability. Now it seems that our priority must be to protect it from Patel’s ideas, which also happen to be legal but harmful to the internet and civil liberties.