Ms Frances Haugen:

It would be a simplistic lens to say that there is an absolute trade-off between encryption and safety. It is important for us to understand how product choices, when integrated together, influence the impacts of encryption. I strongly support the individual's right to access to encrypted communications. The only chat app that gives me my core social media is Signal, which is an open-source form of encrypted messaging. At the same time, we need to understand how product choices can increase the risk of encryption. For example, let us contrast Signal and Facebook Messenger. In the case of Facebook Messenger, you get a direct line to a giant catalogue of whatever people you want. On Signal, if you want to talk to a 13-year-old, you will have to find that 13-year-old’s phone number. In the case of Facebook, you can go and follow whatever the latest meme is, find a group about that meme and then you will find a bunch of middle school kids. You can go on Instagram and do the same thing. We need to think about the interactions between systems. We need to begin to think creatively about what tools we can provide to children in those encrypted spaces. Therefore, I do not think this is a binary trade-off between X and Y. This is why risk assessments are really important. If we allow companies to build and progress on an encrypted pathway without having had conversations with the public, we will never build in systems that say, "Hey, there's a bunch of these different tools that we could be providing to children in encrypted spaces". Yes, it will cost companies a little bit of money to develop them, but that is how we can make sure that we can have both safety and encryption.