In December 2023 the operator began rolling out end-to-end encryption as the default on its largest messaging surface. The surface had been the origin of a substantial share of the operator's CyberTipline reporting, and server-side content matching is not possible once messages are encrypted. Child-protection organisations and several governments objected that the change would reduce the volume of detectable material without a demonstrated compensating mechanism, while privacy advocates argued that scanning private messages is itself a harm. The operator has described metadata analysis, behavioural signals and user reporting as its compensating measures, but has not published figures allowing their effectiveness to be compared against the detection they replaced.
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