Are pro-Trump extremists’ messages more dangerous if they’re encrypted?

Published: Jan. 20, 2021, 10:38 a.m.

The app Parler is offline, and Facebook and Twitter are tamping down extremist speech on their platforms. More people are migrating to apps like Signal, which encrypts messages between parties, and Telegram, which can. That blunts the power of extremist messages, but it also makes it harder for law enforcement to see what they might be up to, reigniting a yearslong debate about encryption itself. Molly speaks with Alexandra Givens, the president and CEO of the Center for Democracy & Technology.