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Mark Zuckerberg reportedly orders Facebook Messenger and Instagram teams to add end-to-end encryption http://bit.ly/2S6fu8D Facebook is reportedly looking to add end-to-end encryption to both Facebook Messenger and Instagram Direct chats, according to The New York Times. It’s part of a plan from CEO Mark Zuckerberg to merge the underlying messaging system across Messenger, Instagram, and WhatsApp so all three apps can communicate between each other. The move apparently comes directly from Zuckerberg, who has ordered the company to rework the underlying infrastructure behind all three apps into a single, unified service that will allow users of Facebook’s three disparate messaging services to talk to each other, even if they don’t have accounts on the same app. As part of that overhaul, Zuckerberg is reportedly ordering that Messenger and Instagram join WhatsApp by adding end-to-end encryption. That means, in theory, Facebook would no longer be able to access or investigate any messages sent on any of its platforms (or between any of its platforms, should the cross-platform system actually make it to consumers). Facebook Messenger already offers a Secret Conversations feature that’s encrypted end to end, but few users know about it. While Facebook wouldn’t directly confirm the planned cross-platform merger, the company did acknowledge the fact that it was working on adding end-to-end encryption to The New York Times, saying, “We’re working on making more of our messaging products end-to-end encrypted and considering ways to make it easier to reach friends and family across networks.” The move would make sense as part of Facebook’s goal to merge the messaging systems. After all, offering end-to-end encryption on WhatsApp isn’t really that useful if that protection gets lost when users message friends on other platforms. While Facebook adding more secure messaging on more platforms is ostensibly a good thing, there could be downsides, too. Part of WhatsApp’s prevalent disinformation issues stem from the fact that there isn’t really a way track or moderate what content is sent on it (as recently seen in Brazil’s presidential election last fall). This led Facebook to institute a limit on how many times messages can now be forwarded on the platform. It’s easy to imagine how this sort of issue might grow more controversial if Facebook throws its other billion-plus user platforms into the mix. Gadget News via The Verge http://bit.ly/1jLudMg January 25, 2019 at 09:27AM
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