Apple Threatens to Pull FaceTime and iMessage in the UK Over Proposed Surveillance Law Changes

vegetassj4 · Jul 20, 2023

Dear sirs, with regards to your attempt to remove freedom of privacy in the name of making your job easier (investigations) you can go:

yourself

bransoj · Jul 20, 2023

CarAnalogy said:
I have anecdata from every thread that ever mentioned WhatsApp with dozens of Europeans chiming in to say “who uses SMS and iMessage? Everyone uses WhatsApp!”

Which is generally met by others in Europe saying thats not true at all. I'm UK and barely use Whatsapp bar a couple of group threads for things. Everything else is iMessage or just normal SMS.

visualseed · Jul 20, 2023

ForkHandles said:
This is the most illiberal UK government we have ever endured. They break things, they lie, they remove our freedoms.

It is now illegal to protest in the UK now ffs. The majority of the press here enjoy lucrative government advertising contracts so are virtually nothing more than mouthpieces.

November 5th is just around the corner

StrangeNoises · Jul 20, 2023

chenks said:
they claim they would remove services, but the reality is they never would.

they don't have to lose the market, as in, they'd withdraw the *service*, they'll still sell the macs and phones and ipads etc. and no-one who owns one will vote for that party again. i mean, there are plenty of other reasons why they should not, imho, but if it comes down to that being the clincher, we'll take it.

contacos · Jul 20, 2023

chenks said:
so no stats then, thanks for confirming it was a wild and inaccurate claim

there you go

Bildschirmfoto 2023-07-20 um 14.31.46.png

toobravetosave · Jul 20, 2023

The UK government of corrupt child diddlers is being hypocritical and evil? Nooooo wayyyy

chenks · Jul 20, 2023

ForkHandles said:
It is now illegal to protest in the UK now ffs.

which is untrue.
it's the angle that some like to push forward, but it's simply not true.

Krizoitz · Jul 20, 2023

Apple Knowledge Navigator said:
Can you blame the government for wanting to side-step them?

Yes, I absolutely CAN blame the government for such Orwellian and oppressive tactics. Any sane and rational person would.

chenks · Jul 20, 2023

contacos said:
there you go

those stats are meaningless without knowing the sample group.
i could create any stat to support any argument

MacsRgr8 · Jul 20, 2023

chenks said:
those stats are meaningless without knowing the sample group.
i could create any stat to support any argument

80% of stats are made up. Including this one 😁

sflagel · Jul 20, 2023

chenks said:
so no stats then, thanks for confirming it was a wild and inaccurate claim

No need to defend iMessage and FaceTime... They are used in the UK, but nowhere near as important as in the US. WhatsApp is very strong in UK and Europe. Like, the green versus blue bubble issue is not a thing here. Group Chats are always done on WhatsApp, I have never ever been invited to an iMessage Group Chat. Android also has a far larger marketshare here. If iMessage and FaceTime were to shut down, everyone would just use WhatsApp.The only reason I do not exclusively use WhatsApp is because they don't offer an Apple Watch App.

MacWiz_007 · Jul 20, 2023

As much as I love Jolly Ole from afar, I'll just leave this right here...1776 🇺🇸 Seriously though, things are bonkers over there of late.

McWetty · Jul 20, 2023

The British could learn a thing or two from the French…

chenks · Jul 20, 2023

McWetty said:
The British could learn a thing or two from the French…

what's that? being annoying, strike at a moments notice, and generally burn the place down?

contacos · Jul 20, 2023

MacsRgr8 said:
80% of stats are made up. Including this one 😁

well then dont ask for stats

sflagel · Jul 20, 2023

Kazgarth said:
This law doesn't only affect iMessage, but also WhatsApp, Signal and every app with E2E encryption.

But the threat of pulling FaceTime and iMessage doesn't .....

BellSystem · Jul 20, 2023

Kazgarth said:
Apple is doing all the brave work on behave of us for better privacy for humanity.

Turning off iMessage and FaceTime is literally them complying without having to do anything. If they were “brave” they would say “we ain’t changing nothing.” This is stir the pot marketing to make you think they care.

Apple is really the UK hero….turn off iMessage so the government can monitor your SMS….turn off FaceTime so you have to use easily monitored phone calls. So brave.

chenks · Jul 20, 2023

sflagel said:
No need to defend iMessage and FaceTime... They are used in the UK, but nowhere near as important as in the US. WhatsApp is very strong in UK and Europe. Like, the green versus blue bubble issue is not a thing here. Group Chats are always done on WhatsApp, I have never ever been invited to an iMessage Group Chat. Android also has a far larger marketshare here. If iMessage and FaceTime were to shut down, everyone would just use WhatsApp.The only reason I do not exclusively use WhatsApp is because they don't offer an Apple Watch App.

it depends who you ask and where you ask.
but according to a stat i just found, apple is the most used phone brand in the uK (as of March 2023) with 50% marketshare.

Region
United Kingdom
Survey time period
April 2022 to March 2023
Number of respondents
3,880 respondents
Age group
18-64 years

i agree there was a time where whatsapp was the more dominant chat tool, but from what i can see that share has been dropping each year.

in spain though, i believe Samsung is very dominant there.

Krizoitz · Jul 20, 2023

contacos said:
there you go

View attachment 2234964

No citation though? Anyone could make up that graph. Also is that Europe or the UK? The lack of labels makes it problematic too.

75Batt · Jul 20, 2023

Rychiar said:
the UK government sounds atrocious

They really are

sflagel · Jul 20, 2023

chenks said:
what's that? being annoying, strike at a moments notice, and generally burn the place down?

Yes, exactly that. Maybe then the governments here would rule for the people, not over the people.

romanof · Jul 20, 2023

chenks said:
so no stats then, thanks for confirming it was a wild and inaccurate claim

According to Statisca https://www.statista.com/forecasts/1328650/imessage-messengers-brand-profile-in-the-uk iMessage usage in the UK is about 33%. Not sure if it means of iphone users or total sum of phone owners. I would guess the former.

5232152 · Jul 20, 2023

Every time this topic comes up in one way or another, I say the same:

Ban all roads. Criminals use them to go to and from crime scenes.

75Batt · Jul 20, 2023

klasma said:
iMessage and FaceTime aren’t that popular in the UK, it’s not much of a factor in opting to buy Apple devices.

According to you? Coming from the UK too I beg to differ.

gaximus · Jul 20, 2023

contacos said:
there you go

View attachment 2234964

I'm sure they allowed people to choose more than one option when voting, but setting a percentage on the graph makes no sense(There is more that 100% total usage). Also where does this data come from? When was it taken? Who is taking the survey? What ages are the people taking the Survey? It's missing SMS all together, and I'm 100% sure that it's not in the "other" category.

Apple Threatens to Pull FaceTime and iMessage in the UK Over Proposed Surveillance Law Changes

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