The announcement dates back to the end of March. Instagram has decided to change the settings of Direct, the private message service with which accounts can communicate within the platform. Specifically, Meta’s choice of social network was that of eliminate the Privacy Protection function which allows the end-to-end encryptionan option that improves the chat security level. We are talking about a protocol introduced on Instagram in 2022: the abbreviation for this function is E2EE. A variant of this technology is used on WhatsApp, the most popular messaging application in the world. The deadline for Privacy Protection was scheduled for May 8th. At the moment it is therefore no longer possible to activate it.
The reasons behind the choice of Instagram were simple enough to communicate. According to the company it was a function used by few users: it was not sustainable to maintain the service. The only problem was managing the chats of those who had chosen it end-to-end encryption: for them Instagram had sent a notification in recent weeks that allowed them to download all materials sent via chat.
The future of messages on Meta
The Meta ecosystem is changing. Just these days Julia Angwin published an article in the Opinion section of the New York Times entitled: Meta is Dying. It’s About Time. Angwin focuses on two things. The first is the decline of Facebookonce Meta’s flagship. The first social network to reach a global network has aged, younger users don’t even know it and those who opened a profile at the beginning no longer use it as before.
From May, direct messages on Instagram will no longer be as private as they are now: Meta’s announcement
Angwin’s second point is the investments. Between 2021 and 2026 it is estimated that Mark Zuckerberg has invested approx 80 billion dollars in the Metaverse, a project that has now passed into the attic. Not to mention the billions invested in artificial intelligence: an asset that has not yet brought great results at the moment. Meta’s models are not competing with the industry giants. In all this, WhatsApp remains, a message service with billions of registered users around the world. And this is exactly where it could focus Meta’s development strategyas well as on Instagram which for now still seems in good health.
In the latest tests we have monitored, WhatsApp is introducing the possibility of replacing your phone number with a username. In this way you can talk to other users even without having their direct contact. Just like on Instagram. It is not unthinkable that in the future Meta will transform WhatsApp into one single messaging platform on which all registered users communicate social.
