I mean really, how dumb can people be? Meta not only owns the platform they also own the app that does the actual encryption and, crucially, holds the plaintext data before it gets encrypted.

OF COURSE they are completely free to send interesting data from very specifically targeted people over any side channel they chose, without a trace. They don't need to attack the encryption itself.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/jan/31/us-authorities-reportedly-investigate-claims-that-meta-can-read-encrypted-whatsapp-messages