Meta executives moved ahead with plans to encrypt messages on Facebook and Instagram even after internal leaders warned it would cripple their ability to catch child exploitation. New documents filed in a New Mexico court reveal that top officials at the social media giant knew the privacy update could have dangerous consequences for young users.
“We are about to do a bad thing as a company. This is so irresponsible,” wrote Monika Bickert, Meta’s head of content policy, in a private chat from March 2019. She sent the message just as CEO Mark Zuckerberg was preparing to publicly announce the shift toward privacy. The filing suggests deep internal conflict between the company’s public goals and the safety of its most vulnerable users.
The company’s own internal data supported these fears. A briefing document from early 2019 estimated that if Messenger used end-to-end encryption, reports of child sexual exploitation sent to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children would drop by roughly 65 percent. Another update warned that Meta would be unable to provide data to police for hundreds of active child exploitation and sextortion cases.
These revelations are part of a lawsuit brought by New Mexico Attorney General Raul Torrez. The state claims Meta allows predators easy access to children, often leading to real-world abuse. Torrez argues that while encryption protects user privacy, it also creates a safe haven for criminals who find victims on public pages and then move them to unmonitored private chats.
Meta spokesperson Andy Stone defended the rollout. He stated that the concerns raised in 2019 drove the company to develop new safety features before they finally launched encrypted messaging in 2023. Stone noted that the company now has measures in place, such as preventing adults from messaging children they do not know, to mitigate these risks.
Despite these assurances, the documents show that safety executives like Antigone Davis were worried years ago. In an email, Davis noted that Facebook allows pedophiles to find kids through their social networks and easily transition them to private, encrypted conversations on Messenger.
