It is discussed widely and openly including in sibling threads.
I also think it was in the news a few months back and I even think it was discussed here.
Edit: note, I am not saying messages aren’t always sent E2E-encrypted between users today, only that in some cases they are also sent in a side channel to Facebook simultaneously.
Edit 3: this is of course on top of the fact that they uploaded the backups (from everyone who enabled backups) unencrypted to Google under terms that let Google sift through it.
I read through the second link (I didn't bother with your first link, as it is just to a bunch of search results, and the result of looking at your second link undermined your credibility too hard for me to go hunting), and you seem to fundamentally misunderstand the limitations of e2e encryption.
> A WhatsApp spokeswoman told The Post: “WhatsApp provides a way for people to report spam or abuse, which includes sharing the most recent messages in a chat. This feature is important for preventing the worst abuse on the internet. We strongly disagree with the notion that accepting reports a user chooses to send us is incompatible with end-to-end encryption.”
Are you somehow expecting e2e encryption to mean "incapable of being copied"? Once the user receives a message if they think "OMG this message is horrible!" of course they can send a copy of that message to WhatsApp... it's their data to send!! Technology not only can't it shouldn't attempt to prevent what that user can do with their data once it is on their phone, and while I'd prefer more localized block mechanisms be put into place it doesn't violate security to implement some weird "if the user you spoke with is an asshole and wants to send a copy of your message to Facebook, they should get to do so" feature.
(Also, your third edit is just silly: the user enabled backups and backups don't even automatically enable. The way backups work was always disclosed, and if you didn't want to enable backups DON'T ENABLE BACKUPS. But, the thing to appreciate is that these are YOUR MESSAGES: if you think it makes sense to have a backup copy on Google's server you should 100% get to do that, just as you should get to screenshot them and upload them to Twitter. Would it have been better to build an encrypted backup feature? Sure... and they eventually did! Would you have simply preferred them to not implement a backup mechanism at all?! Just because someone hasn't gotten around to something doesn't mean they are evil. Technology should not prevent users from doing whatever they want with their data.)
None of those are sent by Whastapp, everything you quote literally talks about USERS deliberately forwarding their own messages, so clearly without use deliberately doing it, Facebook wouldn't have access to content of these messages. By this logic NONE app is E2EE since I can always take screenshot or forward the message or in the worst case take photo with other phone while reading and then write crazy articles that mesages on Signal are not E2EE because I took photo of the message and send it to Signal team.
I also think it was in the news a few months back and I even think it was discussed here.
Edit: note, I am not saying messages aren’t always sent E2E-encrypted between users today, only that in some cases they are also sent in a side channel to Facebook simultaneously.
Edit 2:
You can try this search: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=does+whatsapp+sometimes+send+messa...
Or read this article: https://nypost.com/2021/09/07/facebook-reads-and-shares-what...
Edit 3: this is of course on top of the fact that they uploaded the backups (from everyone who enabled backups) unencrypted to Google under terms that let Google sift through it.