Casablanca – Instagram is dropping end-to-end encrypted messages from its direct messages, just over a year after introducing the feature.
Meta says the change will take effect on May 8. In a statement to The Verge, spokesperson Dina El-Kassaby Luce said very few people were using encrypted chats on the platform. Users who turned the feature on are now being notified inside the app and advised to download their encrypted conversations and images before access is removed.
End-to-end encryption, or E2EE, means only the sender and the recipient can read messages. Not even the platform itself can access the content. Messages are locked on the sender’s device and only unlocked on the receiver’s, with servers acting as a pass-through for unreadable data.
But on Instagram, encryption was never fully built into the system. It launched in 2023 as an optional setting, limited to specific chats and missing some features. Users had to turn it on manually, and it didn’t extend across the entire messaging experience.
That limited rollout may explain the low adoption. Instagram’s messaging is tightly tied to social features, creator interactions, and business use. Encryption can interfere with those tools, making chats less flexible and harder to manage across devices.
There is also growing pressure from regulators. Authorities in the United States, the UK, and other countries have raised concerns that encryption makes it harder to detect and prevent crimes, especially those involving minors.
In 2024, Nevada’s attorney general moved to block Meta from offering encrypted messaging to minors, while New Mexico accused the company of knowingly enabling conditions that could make abuse harder to track.
Without encryption, Meta can scan messages for harmful content and respond more proactively. With it, detection relies mostly on user reports.
Meta is not stepping away from encryption entirely. WhatsApp will continue to use it by default, and Messenger is still moving in that direction. For Instagram, though, the company appears to be drawing a line between private messaging and social interaction.
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