After the Nebraska abortion case, Meta tests more E2EE chats and backups in Messenger, and says default E2EE messages and calls will roll out globally in 2023
Messenger had already made encrypted chats and calls broadly available as an opt-in mode; Meta is now moving from availability toward wider testing of encrypted conversations and backups. The Nebraska case gives that transition immediate stakes around what message data the service can expose.
Messenger test participants gain access to more end-to-end encrypted chats and encrypted backups, while Meta commits to making encryption the default for messages and calls globally in 2023.
Meta must extend Messenger’s encrypted infrastructure beyond a separate opt-in feature to support backups and a broad default setting.
Second-order effects
Feature parity becomes a product requirement for encrypted Messenger: Meta later added themes, custom emoji, and link previews to encrypted chats while expanding the default-E2EE test.
The rollout changes the trade-off for Messenger users from actively selecting protected chats to deciding whether to leave a protected default, increasing the importance of Meta’s backup design.
Third-order effects
If default encryption expands beyond one-to-one conversations, private-message services will increasingly compete on whether encryption covers ordinary features and stored message history, not merely live chats.
The Nebraska episode and Messenger’s subsequent rollout point to messaging privacy becoming an architectural choice made by platforms rather than a setting reserved for users who seek it out.
The trend: Consumer messaging is moving from opt-in encrypted modes toward encryption designed into the default experience, including storage and everyday chat features.
Messenger is announcing one of its incremental E2EE rollouts today, which...good! But Meta says the timing is long-planned and unrelated to revelations that the company was compelled by law enforcement to hand over chat data in the Nebraska abortion case https://www.wired.com/...
Interesting to see how the E2E encryption debate evolves. Anti-encryption advocates usually combine terrorism & CSAM concerns with a dose of 'if you've done nothing wrong, you've got nothing to hide'. Is the latter argument sustainable post-Roe vs Wade? https://www.theguardian.co…
@evacide A particularly frustrating aspect of this story is the framing of “Facebook complied with a warrant” vs “Facebook had data to turn over in the first place”.
If your platform enables users to send messages to each other, they should be end-to-end encrypted by default. Instagram messages? e2e by default. Twitter DMs? e2e by default. Telegram messages? e2e by default. All of it.
When you're having a bad news week, and you absolutely have to roll out a long rumored feature to take the attention away from the negative coverage 👇🏾 https://twitter.com/...
@runasand @lilyhnewman And that's before you get into the really hard parts of counter-abuse, account recovery, and all the other integrated systems that have to be rethought from the ground up. The progression towards E2E is a good thing, but it ain't easy, and it comes with maj…
As the “Should FB Messenger have default end-to-end encryption” battle kicks off again (with discussion of trade-offs in short supply): would be nice to have the far more basic ability to be able to deactivate it, period. Or to make it undiscoverable, at a minimum.
We continue to make progress on end-to-end encryption for @messenger. This week we're starting tests for secure back-ups and also default end-to-end encrypted chats between some people. https://messengernews.fb.com/ ...
Ah yes, the Facebook feature that's been in “the diary for months,” but suddenly rushed out on short notice during a bad news week for the company. https://www.wired.com/... https://twitter.com/...
["For example, for iOS devices you can use iCloud to store a secret key that allows access to your backups. While this method of protecting your key is secure, it is not protected by Messenger's end-to-end encryption."] This is a good way to frame “secure, but not end-to-end encr…
This is a good sign but these baby steps aren't going to protect the most vulnerable. The demand is simple: every messaging service should be end to end encrypted by default, as soon as humanly possible. Anything less is dangerous. https://twitter.com/...
As with end-to-end encrypted chats, secure storage means that Messenger won't have access to your messages, unless you choose to report them to us. https://twitter.com/...
We're testing secure storage on @messenger, a new way to back up your end-to-end encrypted chats. Here's everything you need to know👇 https://about.fb.com/...