A landmark New Mexico verdict against Meta is reshaping the debate over end-to-end encryption (E2EE), raising questions about whether platforms that serve minors can continue to defend encryption as a default feature. In this guest article, Crowell & Moring attorneys Rajeev Raghavan, Matthew Ferraro, Joanna Rosen Forster and Emily Welsch examine how E2EE became a central issue in the litigation, the growing regulatory and political pressure on encrypted services, and arguments advanced by state AGs, lawmakers and child-safety advocates. It also explores the operational, legal and compliance considerations organizations may need to weigh when evaluating the future of E2EE, from content moderation and law enforcement requests to privacy obligations and AI-generated harms. The analysis offers a timely look at how encryption decisions are increasingly being scrutinized through the lens of platform safety and risk management. See our three-part series on the keys to encryption: “Uses and Implementation Challenges” (Mar. 4, 2020), “Legal and Regulatory Framework” (Mar. 11, 2020), and “Effective Policies, Legal’s Role and Third Parties” (Mar. 18, 2020).