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"Also note that both iMessage and WhatsApp strongly encourage you to enable iCloud backups, which are not e2e encrypted and readable by Apple"

-> That's not completely true (at least for WhatsApp): It is possible to enable a e2e encrypted backup right in the chat-backup menu.

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You are right, I should have said they WhatsApp messages are “not e2e encrypted by default”.

However, I still believe Facebook holds a second decryption key for all messages, which they rolled out along with their web access product as described above. So they are not e2e encrypted by any reasonable interpretation of the phrase.

I am not aware of any way to e2e encrypt iCloud backups, so the vast majority of “e2e encrypted” iMessage messages are readable by Apple.

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