Instagram quietly disables end-to-end encryption on your DMs

Instagram is quietly disabling the end-to-end encryption option they provided for direct messages.

Not that it’s easy to trust anything their infamously surveillance based parent company does, but still:

In 2019, Meta pledged to introduce the technology across messaging on Facebook and Instagram, saying “the future is private

In 2026, well, I suppose the plan flipped to actively remove the few privacy features they’d built.

The implications are that Meta can now read everything you send via DM.

By switching off E2EE, Instagram will now be able to access all the content of direct messages, including images, videos and voice notes.