Signal's Mission: Preserving Private Communications

• Meredith Whittaker, president of Signal, emphasizes the importance of privacy in human communication, a norm that has been disrupted by digital surveillance.
• Signal aims to preserve the norm of private, intimate communications against the trend of surveillance by private companies and governments.
• Whittaker argues that the current state of surveillance has not been clearly consented to by society and that Signal is maintaining a status quo that should have been checked in on over the past few decades.
• She also addresses the trade-off between freedom and the potential for bad actors, arguing that the focus should be on the surveillance tools and not on the tools used for communication.
• Whittaker believes that Signal needs to both raise awareness about these issues and be a platform for change, showing that it is possible to build a different, privacy-focused tech ecosystem.

Source: Fast Company