I think the first time I read about Instagram profiling typing speed/style to infer depressed users was close to a decade ago

IDK... I'm not defending the bad shit Apple does. But they pushed back against both US and UK govs who were trying to backdoor their shit.

In the UK case, they pulled the entire feature rather than backdoor it for the Home Office. With warning for users, so ppl are not expecting to have encryption, w/o knowing it is backdoored.

In the US case, the US gov tried to compel Apple to create special versions of IOS with encr backdoors. The gov later found a 3rd party who was able to unlock the iPhone, and withdrew the demand. But a judge ruled that Apple could not be compelled to build a special backdoor version.

I don't like Apple. I don't use 'em. They have privacy probs for sure. But they also have pushed back lots of times vs gov attempts to force backdoors into iOS.

Is there solid proof that it is used globally? Have technology experts conducted any research on it, or is verification simply impossible because they cannot inspect the code?

Yeah if you know what you’re doing somewhat…. most people don’t. We are literally held back as a species by the most basic fucking tech debt ever lol.