Meta Expands Testing Of Its Encrypted Messages Across The Messenger App

There is plenty of concern from officials regarding Meta’s move to expand its encryption plan.

The tech giant has mentioned in the past that it hopes to scale ahead with this decision and now, we’re seeing that take place as we speak.

Facebook’s parent firm was recently observed integrating several messaging tools and allowing users to interact via DM chats through its Messenger app, Instagram platform, and also WhatsApp.

This latest decision by Meta would see an expansion of the encrypted messaging feature on the platform as the tech giant opts to build upon its initial plan of encryption that started in 2022.

As can be observed in such an example, several users would end up seeing Messenger chats shift to complete encryption, whether they like it or not. Moreover, the company was seen stating the news through a recent blog post.


They hope to notify users through separate chat threads whenever it’s upgraded as they do realize that so many will have queries on the matter regarding selection and upgrade. Hence, they wish to make it super clear how the process would be random and that it’s designed in a manner that there’s no negativity on the likes of infrastructure or a user’s general chat experience.

At the same time, you’ll be seeing this as a new initiative of the E2E encrypted threads that give people the quickest, most reliable, and richest experience through the platform. As mentioned by the firm, this project began last year in January and encryption has become a part of group chats. Hence, this would turn out to be the next stage across the company’s decision to incorporate multi-part systems for the complete integration of various messaging tools. This was first stated in 2019 and ended up providing a lot more security and privacy.

It’s also another wonderful means through which users can benefit from better security and privacy across the board. You’ll also see it noting cross-platform features through this messaging process, it adds.

But critics are not holding back on how they feel about this. According to them, it’s another way for criminals to get away with a lot as it gives them protection. They can now disguise their activities from law enforcement agencies using full encryption. Hence, not even the likes of Meta would have insights into what’s taking place across its servers.

It’s worrying because in 2021, Meta’s own personal investigation showed how it detected and even deleted material linked to child abuse throughout that period. There was a staggering 22 million images of child abuse on the platform and these were reported to the NCMEC. Then in the year prior to that, the regulating body stated how Facebook was responsible for 94% of the millions of child abuse pictures reported by American tech firms.

So making a complete switch to encryption raises eyebrows for obvious reasons and makes these things so impossible to detect.

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