Meta pressed ahead with Messenger encryption despite safety warnings

Meta executives moved forward with plans to encrypt messages on Facebook and Instagram despite internal warnings that the change could weaken the company’s ability to detect and report child exploitation, according to newly unsealed court filings.

Internal chats and emails submitted in a New Mexico lawsuit show senior policy and safety leaders at Meta expressing alarm as the company prepared to announce end-to-end encryption for Facebook Messenger and later Instagram. In a March 2019 exchange, Meta’s then head of content policy, Monika Bickert, wrote that the plan was “so irresponsible,” as executives finalized a public rollout backed by CEO Mark Zuckerberg, News.az reports, citing Reuters.

The documents, made public last week, were obtained during discovery in a lawsuit brought by Raul Torrez. The state alleges Meta failed to adequately protect minors, allowing predators to contact underage users and, in some cases, facilitating real-world abuse. The case, now at trial, is among the first of its kind against the company to reach a jury.

The filing also claims Meta overstated the safeguards it would deploy alongside encryption. While Zuckerberg publicly said risks were being addressed, internal records show safety teams feared encryption would sharply limit their ability to spot harmful behavior and cooperate with law enforcement.

End-to-end encryption—where only the sender and recipient can read messages—is widely used across the tech industry, including by Apple and Google, and has long been a core feature of Meta’s WhatsApp. Critics argue, however, that adding it by default to large social networks can increase risks for children. Groups such as the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children have warned that encryption can make it harder to detect abuse when platforms connect minors with strangers.

Meta says it spent years developing safety features before launching encrypted messaging more broadly in 2023. The New Mexico filings, however, suggest internal concern that the protections would fall short—adding to mounting legal and regulatory pressure on the company over the welfare of young users worldwide.

News.Az 

By Aysel Mammadzada