Your Chats on Instagram Just Became Less Safe And Easily Hackable

The move marks a major reversal from Meta, which had previously promoted end-to-end encryption (E2EE) as the strongest form of messaging privacy, where only the sender and receiver can read the content.

End-to-end encryption had long been debated, with safety groups arguing it can make it harder to detect harmful or illegal activity online, while others say it is essential for protecting user data.

The decision has been welcomed by child safety organizations, who say stronger access to content can help identify abuse and exploitation cases earlier. At the same time, privacy campaigners have criticized the rollback.