Mark Zuckerberg on Monday threw his support behind Apple in its bitter battle with the United States government over attempts to gain access to information protected by the company’s sophisticated encryption technology.
Speaking at the Mobile World Congress, an annual tech and telecommunications conference here, Mr. Zuckerberg said that Facebook would play its part in the fight against global terrorism, but that weakening the digital security of technology companies was a bad idea.
A federal magistrate judge, at the Justice Department’s request, recently ordered Apple to bypass security functions on the phone of a gunman in the December mass shooting in San Bernardino, Calif. But the company has refused to comply with that order, fearful that it could be forced to create a so-called back door to its encryption technology that could be misused by government agencies.
“I don’t think building back doors is the way to go, so we’re pretty sympathetic to Tim and Apple,” said Mr. Zuckerberg, in reference to Apple’s chief executive, Timothy D. Cook.
Mr. Zuckerberg’s comments mirror previous statements that Facebook and other global tech companies have made in support of Apple’s standoff with the government.
While these companies have said they would comply, when legally obliged to, with handing over information on their users, they say they believe that creating technological back doors to their digital systems can lead to potential abuse by governments worldwide.
For Facebook, which has almost 1.6 billion global users, the encryption debate is only one of the growing number of policy hurdles that the company needs to overcome as it expands its global presence.
In India, one of the company’s largest markets, the country’s national regulators this month banned free mobile data programs that favor some Internet services over others. Facebook had introduced Free Basics, which offered people no-fee access to a text-only mobile version of the company’s social network, as well as to certain news, health, job and other services.
Speaking on Monday, Mr. Zuckerberg said his company wanted to offer Internet connectivity to the developing world that did not have digital access and that Facebook would look for ways to continue doing that in India and beyond.
“It’s disappointing to the mission that we’re trying to do,” Mr. Zuckerberg said about the recent decision in India that outlawed Free Basics. “What works in one country may not work in another.”
Despite his attempts to downplay the setback, the recent decision by Indian regulators has put Facebook and its 31-year-old chief executive in an unusual position in the debate over net neutrality, which says that Internet providers should provide equal access to all web content. In the United States, Facebook has been a proponent of net neutrality.
Internet giants like Facebook and Google can expect more scrutiny around the world as they continue to expand, said Pierre Louette, a deputy chief executive of Orange, the former French telecommunications monopoly. When confronted with this scrutiny, he added, tech companies may look to build bridges with traditional telecom operators that have faced similar regulatory challenges for decades.
“They need more friends than before,” said Mr. Louette, in reference to global tech companies.
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