The UK government has long expressed concerns about Facebook’s planned end-to-end encryption feature for messaging, claiming that it will offer cover for child predators and other bad actors. Now, the government Home Office is backing a campaign from a coalition of charities aiming to pressure the social media giant to drop its encryption plans.

The campaign, which reportedly costs half a million pounds, will target Meta shareholders and encourage them to influence the company.

“Technology companies must take responsibility for tackling the most serious illegal content on their platforms and protecting their users, including our children,” the UK’s Home Office said.

However, some advocates are concerned about the lack of transparency in the government’s effort, saying that it should deal with this problem more directly.

“The Home Office is… using charities as a front to put pressure on Facebook’s investors in secret. [It] doesn’t have to do that,” Open Rights Group director Jim Killock told the Financial Times. “It can pass laws on encryption and use the state’s powers through a parliamentary process. The government feels this Bill won’t win a debate in parliament, so instead it’s going after investors in a private company.”

This effort does seem like a bit of an overreach for the government, and no adequate substitutes for encryption have yet been proposed. For its part, Facebook is yet to bend to these demands, and it doesn’t seem likely to start now.

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