One small step for E2EE, but one giant wait until Meta makes it the norm
Meta isn’t hurrying to encrypt the communications of Facebook and Instagram users from end to end by default. But it will continue to make baby steps on providing E2EE to them, including to groups on Facebook Messenger starting today.
The company is officially making encryption available in group chats and calls, both video and voice. It originally began testing late last summer. One-on-one chats and calls up to this point were available encrypted in Secret Conversation mode.
If you use disappearing messages on Messenger, you’ll also be receiving notifications if a recipient screenshots the thread, just as in vanish mode. However, the rollout will take a few weeks.
Antigone Davis, global head of safety at Meta, wrote in The Sunday Telegraph in November that the company is taking its time to get things right and that it won’t make end-to-end encryption default on its messaging platforms until “sometime in 2023.”
WhatsApp remains the only Meta-owned platform with E2EE, standard.
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