Instagram Discontinuing Encrypted Chats

On May 8, 2026, Instagram’s end-to-end encrypted (E2EE) chat feature will be discontinued.

When Meta launched E2EE chats on Instagram and Facebook Messenger,  Meta touted “safer, more secure and private service.” The encryption was built on the Signal protocol and Meta’s Labrynth protocol, according to Meta’s former vice president for Facebook Messenger and Instagram DMs. 

For years, child safety advocates and law enforcement agencies worldwide have argued against Meta’s use of E2EE chats. Critics urged Meta and other social media platforms to implement safety measures to protect children and other users from online predators. The use of E2EE means “messages cannot be scanned for inappropriate content, or viewed by the company or law enforcement.”

In a New Mexico case against Meta, the state argued Meta knew implementing E2EE “would make its platforms less safe by preventing [Meta] from detecting and reporting child sexual exploitation and the solicitation and distribution of child exploitation images sent in encrypted messages.” Internal messages from Meta showed employees discussing their concerns that millions of child sexual abuse material reports would no longer be disclosed after the implementation of E2EE.

On March 24, 2026, the New Mexico jury found Meta willfully violated the state’s consumer protection laws by failing to safeguard users from online predators, endangering children and making misleading statements to the public about the safety of its platforms. The jury ordered Meta to pay $375 million in damages.

Some of the evidence for the New Mexico case came from The Guardian’s 2023 investigative piece titled “How Facebook and Instagram became marketplaces for child sex trafficking.”  The journalists scoured Pacer, the federal courts records database, and found transcripts of sale negotiations for teen girls on Facebook Messenger and pictures of trafficking victims being advertised for sale in Instagram’s stories function. Former Meta contract workers tasked with moderating Facebook and Instagram for harmful content stated their efforts to flag and escalate possible child trafficking “often went nowhere” because Meta’s criteria for escalating crimes to law enforcement was too narrow.

Meta’s claimed reason for discontinuing E2EE Instagram chats was that “very few people were opting in to end-to-end encrypted messaging in DMs.” Meta reminded users that WhatsApp is still available for E2EE messaging.