Recent news had us wondering whether Meta actually knows what it wants.

On one platform, Meta is promoting AI chats that it says even it cannot read. On another, it has removed one of the few features that genuinely prevented Meta from accessing private conversations.

“Meta removed support for end-to-end encrypted chats from Instagram as of May 8, 2026.”

“Meta adds fully private AI chats to WhatsApp.”

At the moment, Meta is heavily promoting a new Incognito Chat mode for its Meta AI assistant in WhatsApp, built on top of a system it calls Private Processing. According to WhatsApp’s own announcement, Incognito Chat is:

 “Truly private — no one can read your conversation, not even us.”

When you start an Incognito chat with Meta AI, you get a temporary conversation where messages aren’t saved and disappear by default, which Meta pitches as “a space to think and explore ideas without anyone watching.”

BBC News and others report that these AI chats are text‑only for now, run in a sandboxed environment, and are separate from your regular end‑to‑end encrypted (E2EE) messaging with other people on WhatsApp.

Meta is also preparing “Side Chat,” which will let you invoke Meta AI inside other WhatsApp chats, again using this Private Processing infrastructure to claim AI assistance without breaking the underlying encryption.

On paper, that’s an impressive technical and marketing story: powerful AI, wrapped in layers of privacy‑preserving infrastructure, added to an app that already has a strong reputation for end‑to‑end encryption by default.

Meanwhile, on Instagram…

Now contrast that with what’s happening on Instagram. On 8 May 2026, Meta removed optional end‑to‑end encryption for Instagram Direct Messages (DMs) entirely. Users who had previously turned the feature on were shown notices that “end‑to‑end encrypted messaging on Instagram is no longer supported as of 8 May 2026,” and were urged to download backups of their encrypted conversations before the cutoff.

End‑to‑end encryption ensures that only the sender and recipient can read their conversations. Instagram offered this as an opt‑in feature since late 2023, but it was buried several taps deep inside individual conversation settings and never turned on by default. Meta’s explanation for shutting it down is that “very few people” used encrypted DMs and that maintaining a separate encrypted system added complexity. Critics have pointed out the circular logic. The company hid the feature, did not advertise it, and is now using low adoption as the reason to kill it rather than, say, making it easier to find or turning it on by default.

What all this means

From a user’s perspective, the result is confusing: one Meta product introduces stronger privacy than ever for AI chats, while another removes the one feature that truly stopped Meta from reading your conversations.

The key point to remember here is that “incognito” and “private” are marketing words, while end‑to‑end encryption is a technical guarantee.

For security‑conscious users, this split personality means you can no longer treat all Meta chats the same. WhatsApp remains end‑to‑end encrypted for person‑to‑person messages and adds optional privacy features around its AI, while Instagram DMs should now be assumed readable by Meta and potentially accessible to law enforcement, advertisers, or attackers who gain access to Meta’s systems.

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Why make AI chats private?

We’ve seen that AI chats have suddenly turned up in search results without users’ knowledge. So there definitely is a positive side to this new feature.

We also know there have been lawsuits against chatbot providers in cases where the outcome of an AI conversation led to very undesirable results. But how would you be able to provide evidence when messages auto-disappear?

How to proceed

Meta’s recent moves show that strong privacy features can be added where they support a strategic narrative and removed where they conflict with business or regulatory priorities. Users can’t control those decisions, but they can respond by choosing where they hold their most sensitive conversations and by assuming that if a chat isn’t end‑to‑end encrypted by default, it is ultimately readable by someone other than the people in it.

So, what’s a safe way to move forward?

• Treat Instagram DMs as postcard-level privacy. Now that E2EE is gone, assume Meta can read and scan your messages and that content could be accessed under legal orders or in a breach. Do not send passwords, recovery codes, banking details, or compromising photos over Instagram.
• When someone asks you to move a conversation to Signal, WhatsApp, or another E2EE messenger, ask them why. It does make sense when you’re sharing financial details, personal images, health information, or anything you would not want a platform provider to read. But sometimes scammers prefer encrypted platforms too, because they’re harder to monitor.
• Do not confuse “incognito” AI chats with full encryption. WhatsApp’s Incognito mode for Meta AI may be a privacy improvement over standard cloud AI chats, but it is still a conversation with a large language model owned by the same company that runs the platform. Share only what you’re comfortable entrusting to Meta.
• Regularly review your privacy and security settings. Check which devices are logged in, enable two‑factor authentication, and verify which of your chat apps are actually end‑to‑end encrypted by default.

---

Scammers know more about you than you think. 

Malwarebytes Mobile Security protects you from phishing, scam texts, malicious sites, and more. With real-time AI-powered Scam Guard built right in. 

Download for iOS → Download for Android → 

Recent news had us wondering whether Meta actually knows what it wants.

On one platform, Meta is promoting AI chats that it says even it cannot read. On another, it has removed one of the few features that genuinely prevented Meta from accessing private conversations.

“Meta removed support for end-to-end encrypted chats from Instagram as of May 8, 2026.”

“Meta adds fully private AI chats to WhatsApp.”

At the moment, Meta is heavily promoting a new Incognito Chat mode for its Meta AI assistant in WhatsApp, built on top of a system it calls Private Processing. According to WhatsApp’s own announcement, Incognito Chat is:

 “Truly private — no one can read your conversation, not even us.”

When you start an Incognito chat with Meta AI, you get a temporary conversation where messages aren’t saved and disappear by default, which Meta pitches as “a space to think and explore ideas without anyone watching.”

BBC News and others report that these AI chats are text‑only for now, run in a sandboxed environment, and are separate from your regular end‑to‑end encrypted (E2EE) messaging with other people on WhatsApp.

Meta is also preparing “Side Chat,” which will let you invoke Meta AI inside other WhatsApp chats, again using this Private Processing infrastructure to claim AI assistance without breaking the underlying encryption.

On paper, that’s an impressive technical and marketing story: powerful AI, wrapped in layers of privacy‑preserving infrastructure, added to an app that already has a strong reputation for end‑to‑end encryption by default.

Meanwhile, on Instagram…

Now contrast that with what’s happening on Instagram. On 8 May 2026, Meta removed optional end‑to‑end encryption for Instagram Direct Messages (DMs) entirely. Users who had previously turned the feature on were shown notices that “end‑to‑end encrypted messaging on Instagram is no longer supported as of 8 May 2026,” and were urged to download backups of their encrypted conversations before the cutoff.

End‑to‑end encryption ensures that only the sender and recipient can read their conversations. Instagram offered this as an opt‑in feature since late 2023, but it was buried several taps deep inside individual conversation settings and never turned on by default. Meta’s explanation for shutting it down is that “very few people” used encrypted DMs and that maintaining a separate encrypted system added complexity. Critics have pointed out the circular logic. The company hid the feature, did not advertise it, and is now using low adoption as the reason to kill it rather than, say, making it easier to find or turning it on by default.

What all this means

From a user’s perspective, the result is confusing: one Meta product introduces stronger privacy than ever for AI chats, while another removes the one feature that truly stopped Meta from reading your conversations.

The key point to remember here is that “incognito” and “private” are marketing words, while end‑to‑end encryption is a technical guarantee.

For security‑conscious users, this split personality means you can no longer treat all Meta chats the same. WhatsApp remains end‑to‑end encrypted for person‑to‑person messages and adds optional privacy features around its AI, while Instagram DMs should now be assumed readable by Meta and potentially accessible to law enforcement, advertisers, or attackers who gain access to Meta’s systems.

---

---

Why make AI chats private?

We’ve seen that AI chats have suddenly turned up in search results without users’ knowledge. So there definitely is a positive side to this new feature.

We also know there have been lawsuits against chatbot providers in cases where the outcome of an AI conversation led to very undesirable results. But how would you be able to provide evidence when messages auto-disappear?

How to proceed

Meta’s recent moves show that strong privacy features can be added where they support a strategic narrative and removed where they conflict with business or regulatory priorities. Users can’t control those decisions, but they can respond by choosing where they hold their most sensitive conversations and by assuming that if a chat isn’t end‑to‑end encrypted by default, it is ultimately readable by someone other than the people in it.

So, what’s a safe way to move forward?

• Treat Instagram DMs as postcard-level privacy. Now that E2EE is gone, assume Meta can read and scan your messages and that content could be accessed under legal orders or in a breach. Do not send passwords, recovery codes, banking details, or compromising photos over Instagram.
• When someone asks you to move a conversation to Signal, WhatsApp, or another E2EE messenger, ask them why. It does make sense when you’re sharing financial details, personal images, health information, or anything you would not want a platform provider to read. But sometimes scammers prefer encrypted platforms too, because they’re harder to monitor.
• Do not confuse “incognito” AI chats with full encryption. WhatsApp’s Incognito mode for Meta AI may be a privacy improvement over standard cloud AI chats, but it is still a conversation with a large language model owned by the same company that runs the platform. Share only what you’re comfortable entrusting to Meta.
• Regularly review your privacy and security settings. Check which devices are logged in, enable two‑factor authentication, and verify which of your chat apps are actually end‑to‑end encrypted by default.

---

Scammers know more about you than you think. 

Malwarebytes Mobile Security protects you from phishing, scam texts, malicious sites, and more. With real-time AI-powered Scam Guard built right in. 

Download for iOS → Download for Android → 

Meta is facing two trials over child safety allegations in California and New Mexico. The lawsuits are landmark cases, marking the first time that any such accusations have reached a jury. Although over 40 state attorneys general have filed suits about child safety issues with social media, none had gone to trial until now.

The New Mexico case, filed by Attorney General Raúl Torrez in December 2023, centers on child sexual exploitation. Torrez’s team built their evidence by posing as children online and documenting what happened next, in the form of sexual solicitations. The team brought the suit under New Mexico’s Unfair Trade Practices Act, a consumer protection statute that prosecutors argue sidesteps Section 230 protections.

The most damaging material in the trial, which is expected to run seven weeks, may be Meta’s own paperwork. Newly unsealed internal documents revealed that a company safety researcher had warned about the sheer scale of the problem, claiming that around half a million cases of child exploitation are happening daily. Torrez did not mince words about what he believes the platform has become, calling it an online marketplace for human trafficking. From the complaint:

“Meta’s platforms Facebook and Instagram are a breeding ground for predators who target children for human trafficking, the distribution of sexual images, grooming, and solicitation.”

The complaint’s emphasis on weak age verification touches on a broader issue regulators around the world are now grappling with: how platforms verify the age of their youngest users—and how easily those systems can be bypassed.

In our own research into children’s social media accounts, we found that creating underage profiles can be surprisingly straightforward. In some cases, minimal checks or self-declared birthdates were enough to access full accounts. We also identified loopholes that could allow children to encounter content they shouldn’t or make it easier for adults with bad intentions to find them.

The social media and VR giant has pushed back hard, calling the state’s investigation ethically compromised and accusing prosecutors of cherry-picking data. Defence attorney Kevin Huff argued that the company disclosed its risks rather than concealing them.

Yesterday, Stanford psychiatrist Dr. Anna Lembke told the court she believes Meta’s design features are addictive and that the company has been using the term “Problematic Internet Use” internally to avoid acknowledging addiction.

Meanwhile in Los Angeles, a separate bellwether case against Meta and Google opened on Monday. A 20-year-old woman identified only as KGM is at the center of the case. She alleges that YouTube and Instagram hooked her from childhood. She testified that she was watching YouTube at six, on Instagram by nine, and suffered from worsening depression and body dysmorphia. Her case, which TikTok and Snap settled before trial, is the first of more than 2,400 personal injury filings consolidated in the proceeding. Plaintiffs’ attorney Mark Lanier called it a case about:

“two of the richest corporations in history, who have engineered addiction in children’s brains.”

A litany of allegations

None of this appeared from nowhere. In 2021, whistleblower Frances Haugen leaked internal Facebook documents showing the company knew its platforms damaged teenage mental health. In 2023, Meta whistleblower Arturo Béjar testified before the Senate that the company ignored sexual endangerment of children.

Unredacted documents unsealed in the New Mexico case in early 2024 suggested something uglier still: that the company had actively marketed messaging platforms to children while suppressing safety features that weren’t considered profitable. Internal employees sounded alarms for years but executives reportedly chose growth, according to New Mexico AG Raúl Torrez. Last September, whistleblowers said that the company had ignored child sexual abuse in virtual reality environments.

Outside the courtroom, governments around the world are moving faster than the US Congress. Australia banned under 16s from social media in December 2025, becoming the first country to do so. France’s National Assembly followed, approving a ban on social media for under 15s in January by 130 votes to 21. Spain announced its own under 16 ban this month. By last count, at least 15 European governments were considering similar measures. Whether any of these bans will actually work is uncertain, particularly as young users openly discuss ways to bypass controls.

The United States, by contrast, has passed exactly one major federal child online safety law: the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), in 1998. The Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA), introduced in 2022, passed the Senate 91-3 in mid-2024 then stalled in the House. It was reintroduced last May and has yet to reach a floor vote. States have tried to fill the gap, with 18 proposed similar legislation in 2025, but only one of those was enacted (in Nebraska). A comprehensive federal framework remains nowhere in sight.

On its most recent earnings call, Meta acknowledged it could face material financial losses this year. The pressure is no longer theoretical. The juries in Santa Fe and Los Angeles will now weigh whether the company’s design choices and safety measures crossed legal lines.

If you want to understand how social media platforms can expose children to harmful content—and what parents can realistically do about it—check out our research project on social media safety.

---

We don’t just report on threats – we help protect your social media

Cybersecurity risks should never spread beyond a headline. Protect your social media accounts by using Malwarebytes Identity Theft Protection.

Meta is facing two trials over child safety allegations in California and New Mexico. The lawsuits are landmark cases, marking the first time that any such accusations have reached a jury. Although over 40 state attorneys general have filed suits about child safety issues with social media, none had gone to trial until now.

The New Mexico case, filed by Attorney General Raúl Torrez in December 2023, centers on child sexual exploitation. Torrez’s team built their evidence by posing as children online and documenting what happened next, in the form of sexual solicitations. The team brought the suit under New Mexico’s Unfair Trade Practices Act, a consumer protection statute that prosecutors argue sidesteps Section 230 protections.

The most damaging material in the trial, which is expected to run seven weeks, may be Meta’s own paperwork. Newly unsealed internal documents revealed that a company safety researcher had warned about the sheer scale of the problem, claiming that around half a million cases of child exploitation are happening daily. Torrez did not mince words about what he believes the platform has become, calling it an online marketplace for human trafficking. From the complaint:

“Meta’s platforms Facebook and Instagram are a breeding ground for predators who target children for human trafficking, the distribution of sexual images, grooming, and solicitation.”

The complaint’s emphasis on weak age verification touches on a broader issue regulators around the world are now grappling with: how platforms verify the age of their youngest users—and how easily those systems can be bypassed.

In our own research into children’s social media accounts, we found that creating underage profiles can be surprisingly straightforward. In some cases, minimal checks or self-declared birthdates were enough to access full accounts. We also identified loopholes that could allow children to encounter content they shouldn’t or make it easier for adults with bad intentions to find them.

The social media and VR giant has pushed back hard, calling the state’s investigation ethically compromised and accusing prosecutors of cherry-picking data. Defence attorney Kevin Huff argued that the company disclosed its risks rather than concealing them.

Yesterday, Stanford psychiatrist Dr. Anna Lembke told the court she believes Meta’s design features are addictive and that the company has been using the term “Problematic Internet Use” internally to avoid acknowledging addiction.

Meanwhile in Los Angeles, a separate bellwether case against Meta and Google opened on Monday. A 20-year-old woman identified only as KGM is at the center of the case. She alleges that YouTube and Instagram hooked her from childhood. She testified that she was watching YouTube at six, on Instagram by nine, and suffered from worsening depression and body dysmorphia. Her case, which TikTok and Snap settled before trial, is the first of more than 2,400 personal injury filings consolidated in the proceeding. Plaintiffs’ attorney Mark Lanier called it a case about:

“two of the richest corporations in history, who have engineered addiction in children’s brains.”

A litany of allegations

None of this appeared from nowhere. In 2021, whistleblower Frances Haugen leaked internal Facebook documents showing the company knew its platforms damaged teenage mental health. In 2023, Meta whistleblower Arturo Béjar testified before the Senate that the company ignored sexual endangerment of children.

Unredacted documents unsealed in the New Mexico case in early 2024 suggested something uglier still: that the company had actively marketed messaging platforms to children while suppressing safety features that weren’t considered profitable. Internal employees sounded alarms for years but executives reportedly chose growth, according to New Mexico AG Raúl Torrez. Last September, whistleblowers said that the company had ignored child sexual abuse in virtual reality environments.

Outside the courtroom, governments around the world are moving faster than the US Congress. Australia banned under 16s from social media in December 2025, becoming the first country to do so. France’s National Assembly followed, approving a ban on social media for under 15s in January by 130 votes to 21. Spain announced its own under 16 ban this month. By last count, at least 15 European governments were considering similar measures. Whether any of these bans will actually work is uncertain, particularly as young users openly discuss ways to bypass controls.

The United States, by contrast, has passed exactly one major federal child online safety law: the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), in 1998. The Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA), introduced in 2022, passed the Senate 91-3 in mid-2024 then stalled in the House. It was reintroduced last May and has yet to reach a floor vote. States have tried to fill the gap, with 18 proposed similar legislation in 2025, but only one of those was enacted (in Nebraska). A comprehensive federal framework remains nowhere in sight.

On its most recent earnings call, Meta acknowledged it could face material financial losses this year. The pressure is no longer theoretical. The juries in Santa Fe and Los Angeles will now weigh whether the company’s design choices and safety measures crossed legal lines.

If you want to understand how social media platforms can expose children to harmful content—and what parents can realistically do about it—check out our research project on social media safety.

---

We don’t just report on threats – we help protect your social media

Cybersecurity risks should never spread beyond a headline. Protect your social media accounts by using Malwarebytes Identity Theft Protection.

Meta plans to test exclusive features that will be incorporated in paid versions of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. It confirmed these plans to TechCrunch.

But these plans are not to be confused with the ad-free subscription options that Meta introduced for Facebook and Instagram in the EU, the European Economic Area, and Switzerland in late 2023 and framed as a way to comply with General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and Digital Markets Act requirements.

From November 2023, users in those regions could either keep using the services for free with personalized ads or pay a monthly fee for an ad‑free experience. European rules require Meta to get users’ consent in order to show them targeted ads, so this was an obvious attempt to recoup advertising revenue when users declined to give that consent.

This year, users in the UK were given the same choice: use Meta’s products for free or subscribe to use them without ads. But only grudgingly, judging by the tone in the offer… “As part of laws in your region, you have a choice.”

That ad-free option, however, is not what Meta is talking about now.

The newly announced plans are not about ads, and they are also separate from Meta Verified, which starts at around $15 a month and focuses on creators and businesses, offering a verification badge, better support, and anti‑impersonation protection.

Instead, these new subscriptions are likely to focus on additional features—more control over how users share and connect, and possibly tools such as expanded AI capabilities, unlimited audience lists, seeing who you follow that doesn’t follow you back, or viewing stories without the poster knowing it was you.

These examples are unconfirmed. All we know for sure is that Meta plans to test new paid features to see which ones users are willing to pay for and how much they can charge.

Meta has said these features will focus on productivity, creativity, and expanded AI.

My opinion

Unfortunately, this feels like another refusal to listen.

Most of us aren’t asking for more AI in our feeds. We’re asking for a basic sense of control: control over who sees us, what’s tracked about us, and how our data is used to feed an algorithm designed to keep us scrolling.

Users shouldn’t have to choose between being mined for behavioral data or paying a monthly fee just to be left alone. The message baked into “pay or be profiled” is that privacy is now a luxury good, not a default right. But while regulators keep saying the model is unlawful, the experience on the ground still nudges people toward the path of least resistance: accept the tracking and move on.

Even then, this level of choice is only available to users in Europe.

Why not offer the same option to users in the US? Or will it take stronger US privacy regulation to make that happen?

---

We don’t just report on threats – we help protect your social media

Cybersecurity risks should never spread beyond a headline. Protect your social media accounts by using Malwarebytes Identity Theft Protection.

Meta plans to test exclusive features that will be incorporated in paid versions of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. It confirmed these plans to TechCrunch.

But these plans are not to be confused with the ad-free subscription options that Meta introduced for Facebook and Instagram in the EU, the European Economic Area, and Switzerland in late 2023 and framed as a way to comply with General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and Digital Markets Act requirements.

From November 2023, users in those regions could either keep using the services for free with personalized ads or pay a monthly fee for an ad‑free experience. European rules require Meta to get users’ consent in order to show them targeted ads, so this was an obvious attempt to recoup advertising revenue when users declined to give that consent.

This year, users in the UK were given the same choice: use Meta’s products for free or subscribe to use them without ads. But only grudgingly, judging by the tone in the offer… “As part of laws in your region, you have a choice.”

That ad-free option, however, is not what Meta is talking about now.

The newly announced plans are not about ads, and they are also separate from Meta Verified, which starts at around $15 a month and focuses on creators and businesses, offering a verification badge, better support, and anti‑impersonation protection.

Instead, these new subscriptions are likely to focus on additional features—more control over how users share and connect, and possibly tools such as expanded AI capabilities, unlimited audience lists, seeing who you follow that doesn’t follow you back, or viewing stories without the poster knowing it was you.

These examples are unconfirmed. All we know for sure is that Meta plans to test new paid features to see which ones users are willing to pay for and how much they can charge.

Meta has said these features will focus on productivity, creativity, and expanded AI.

My opinion

Unfortunately, this feels like another refusal to listen.

Most of us aren’t asking for more AI in our feeds. We’re asking for a basic sense of control: control over who sees us, what’s tracked about us, and how our data is used to feed an algorithm designed to keep us scrolling.

Users shouldn’t have to choose between being mined for behavioral data or paying a monthly fee just to be left alone. The message baked into “pay or be profiled” is that privacy is now a luxury good, not a default right. But while regulators keep saying the model is unlawful, the experience on the ground still nudges people toward the path of least resistance: accept the tracking and move on.

Even then, this level of choice is only available to users in Europe.

Why not offer the same option to users in the US? Or will it take stronger US privacy regulation to make that happen?

---

We don’t just report on threats – we help protect your social media

Cybersecurity risks should never spread beyond a headline. Protect your social media accounts by using Malwarebytes Identity Theft Protection.

The social media platform confirmed that the issue allowed third parties to send password reset emails to Instagram users.

The post Instagram Fixes Password Reset Vulnerability Amid User Data Leak appeared first on SecurityWeek.

How to prove your identity after your account gets hacked and how to improve security for the future

• Phone lost or stolen? Practical steps to restore peace of mind
• UK passport lost or stolen? Here are the steps you need to take

Your Facebook or Instagram account can be your link to friends, a profile for your work or a key to other services, so losing access can be very worrying. Here’s what to do if the worst happens.

If you have access to the phone number or email account associated with your Facebook or Instagram account, try to reset your password by clicking on the “Forgot password?” link on the main Facebook or Instagram login screen. Follow the instructions in the email or text message you receive.

If you no longer have access to the email account linked to your Facebook account, use a device with which you have previously logged into Facebook and go to facebook.com/login/identify. Enter any email address or phone number you might have associated with your account, or find your username which is the string of characters after Facebook.com/ on your page. Click on “No longer have access to these?”, “Forgotten account?” or “Recover” and follow the instructions to prove your identity and reset your password.

If your account was hacked, visit facebook.com/hacked or instagram.com/hacked/ on a device you have previously used to log in and follow the instructions. Visit the help with a hacked account page for Facebook or Instagram.

Change the password to something strong, long and unique, such as a combination of random words or a memorable lyric or quote. Avoid simple or guessable combinations. Use a password manager to help you remember it and other important details.

Turn on two-step verification in the “password and security” section of the Accounts Centre. Use an authentication app or security key for this, not SMS codes. Save your recovery codes somewhere safe in case you lose access to your two-step authentication method.

Turn on “unrecognised login” alerts in the “password and security” section of the Accounts Centre, which will alert you to any suspicious login activity.

Remove any suspicious “friends” from your account – these could be fake accounts or scammers.

If you are eligible, turn on “advanced protection for Facebook” in the “password and security” section of the Accounts Centre.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: bigtunaonline/Alamy

© Photograph: bigtunaonline/Alamy

© Photograph: bigtunaonline/Alamy