The whole premise is that Google and Facebook and everyone else are just doing this on the unencrypted photos you upload, in their cloud, with their own (presumably, but correct me if I'm wrong) undocumented algorithms and datasets.
Now here comes Apple, documenting almost everything except the dataset itself, and everyone is freaking out because it's happening on your own device. But then it's encrypting the whole thing and uploading it to Apple where they presumably do no additional scanning.
What is the actual difference if it's being looked for on-device vs. by the provider? Supposedly in preparation for a bigger push of encryption of the photos themselves, if they are not already encrypted in the cloud.
Am I missing something more than "but it's happening on-device!"?
Also, it's actually pretty easy to mess with Android and get it un-googled. Google don't make most Android phones, so there's less hardware-level enforcement of rules, and more independent alternatives. This is less so for Apple devices. If Apple decides to do something you don't like to your phone, you are SOL; you can only accept it or ditch Apple and switch to Android/something else.
Well, technically this is still true. Files you are putting to iCloud by yourself voluntarily are not staying in your iPhone in the first hand. Everything which is against this, is only speculation currently.
People think that this kind of capability was not there already, while it was. The simplest example case is normal iCloud sync. It scans your files and gets metadata, finally comparing to cloud to know which files to sync.
Other concern is, that this can be easily expanded to other kind of content, or whole device (outside of iCloud files). While, this sounds like valid concern, government who can force this change, could have forced it already. "Technology does not exist" is not valid excuse, never was. There are pretty expensive consults used by politics to prove these excuses otherwise.
Linux is incredible... and still unusable for many everyday apps and workflows, and simply not an option for many people including myself. I've tried Linux distributions since 2011, they aren't there yet.
I have actually totally dumped Windows recently (I have tried it past 5 years), because now Linux is getting very close for everything I need, and this same applies for many people. Can you give some examples which aren't there yet?
Support the continued freedom you enjoyed in your youth for future generations.
