Not really. End to end encryption means messages will leave the app encrypted and only the recipient app will be able to read them.The middle man remains.
A good analogy: it's like writing a letter and asking the mailman to put it into an envelope, so she leaves the room and comes back with your sealed envelope.
The mailman then looks at you and says "I won't read it, I promise.", Wink wink.
The main gap in trust is that facebook does not disclose their source code and have a way for users to confirm their device is running the published code. Fundamentally, if their implementation is properly implementing a published e2e protocol, they should not be able to read the messages, since the only thing traveling in the clear over the wire through their servers are public keys.
> The main gap in trust is that facebook does not disclose their source code
Nah, nobody gives a damn about the source code, or reproducible builds to ensure the binary they're executing was compiled with that source.
The main gap in trust is that Facebook has a long history of lying and cheating to maximize for themselves so there's no basis to trust that their new moves are good for users.
But conspiracy theories about e2e being read by Facebook are probably bogus, and certainly a distraction.
Even though the source is closed, I'd bet they're doing a credible job of securing messages so that even Facebook can't read them.
That's not the issue, it's a distraction from what's really important.
What's really important is that Facebook has lost control of the monster it created. This is a way to let the monster loose and avoid accountability.
Their platform amplifies harmful content like incitement to violence, terrorist recruiting and coordination, and political propaganda.
By encrypting everything so even Facebook can't read it, Facebook escapes accountability for the harm their platform inflicts on people.
Very similar to a chemical company dumping toxic waste in public water, Facebook is dumping their pollution on the public by using strong encryption to make it physically impossible for Facebook to control the monster they created.
If one reads that statement carefully, that says nothing about whether Facebook can read it before encryption. It only says they wouldn't be able to decrypt, once encrypted.
Read a bit more carefully and you'll see "decrypt" isn't in quotes, and as such is my word, not Zuckerberg's.
The keynote's online. (https://www.facebook.com/FacebookforDevelopers/videos/422572...) He mentions end-to-end encryption a variety of times, but one example is at about 15:23, where he states, and here I do quote, "without having to worry about hackers, governments, or even us being able to see what you're saying".
Now, skepticism about Zuckerberg and Facebook is warranted, but my recollection of the keynote is that statements like this didn't leave much wiggle room on this particular point. They were playing word games in other areas, like abusing the term "interoperability" to mean "between the different Facebook-owned apps", but I don't think they were here.
A good analogy: it's like writing a letter and asking the mailman to put it into an envelope, so she leaves the room and comes back with your sealed envelope.
The mailman then looks at you and says "I won't read it, I promise.", Wink wink.
That's end-to-end encryption for the commons.