Article Title: Opinion | End-to-end encryption must be retained at all cost

Article Summary

In the article at hand, the author holds forth on the multifaceted benefits of online anonymity, and what the evil repercussions of its removal could be. He starts the article drawing on ancient Grecian realities, where the anonymity-ensuring Ring of Gyges was a subject of debate. In the style of the ring, end-to-end encryption on social messaging platforms today provides absolute and seamless anonymity. There have been talks pushing for the removal of this feature, stating that it provides a cover under which radical and criminal people engage in acts of child pornography, abusing strangers on the Internet, and the like. However, the author argues, technology is only a means, and not an end in itself. It can have no function of furthering or suppressing positive morality, and is but a slave to the human hands using it. ‘Bad’ and ‘good’ are relative terms that can never be applied fully to it, and people will behave according to their true natures no matter the type of tech they are supplied with – so banning anonymity will be apocalyptic. It will oppress the voices of vulnerable classes like mentally sick people, political rebels or sexually abused women, and the author is very opposed to the whole concept.