Meta is Bailing on a Life-Saving Safety Feature: End-to-End Encrypted Messages on Instagram
Media contact: press@fightforthefuture.org
Meta is backtracking on one of its most important safety promises in recent years: to implement default end-to-end encryption for direct messages on Instagram.
End-to-end encryption (E2EE) protects messages all the way from sender to recipient, so that no one—not even Meta—can see what you’re saying. E2EE keeps your messages safe from police and ICE surveillance, stalkers, your creepy ex who works at Meta, and hackers who want to steal your account information. End-to-end encrypted messages are more important than ever before in the face of an administration that will do anything and everything to silence and punish its critics, including by demanding that social media platforms hand over account info for users speaking out against ICE.
In 2023 Meta promised to make DMs end-to-end encrypted BY DEFAULT on Instagram after implementing default E2EE for messages on Facebook Messenger—a move that followed many months of pressure from Fight for the Future and dozens of human rights organizations.
No better case illustrates the risks of unencrypted DMs than when Meta handed over private messages between a Nebraska teenager and her mother in 2022—messages that were then used to prosecute the young woman for having an abortion. If Messenger were default end-to-end encrypted at that time, Meta would never had access to the messages in the first place.
Meta itself has said—in multiple statements—that default E2EE is a critical way to protect people online.
But now Meta is claiming people aren’t interested in E2EE on Instagram because “no one is opting in.” That excuse is total BS.
We know what this is really about. Meta is looking for some bogus reason to cancel its plans for default E2EE on Instagram so that it can 1) tap your DMs to train its AI and 2) curry political favor with the Trump administration by opening up access to your private messages for spying and surveillance by the government.
“We demand Meta immediately implement end-to-end encryption for messaging on Instagram by default, just like it did for Facebook Messenger,” said Leila Nashashibi, campaigner at Fight for the Future. “As communities around the world come under attack by fascist leaders like Trump, privacy and security on social media apps can’t be “optional”—they are life-saving necessities. No one should have side-door access to our private messages. Companies have the responsibility to integrate safety features that are as robust as possible by default, instead of forcing users to go the extra step of “opting into” these features.”
Fight for the Future is calling on supporters to hold Meta to account by signing the petition “Tell Meta: Don’t Sell Out Our Safety for Profit. Protect DMs on Instagram”: https://www.fightforthefuture.org/actions/meta-promised-safe-dms-but-is-selling-us-out/