Yeah. Sounds about right.
it was a not well-thought out publicity stunt by U2 where they gave away their album.

since it put it in everyone's "purchased" account people couldn't get rid of it - Kinda the opposite problem of what's being claimed here.

finally someone went on the backend and wrote a script that could be run if someone requested it removed.

point being, it was something that had to be engineered from scratch. And only then it removed it from their account and not the actual devices.

I use it as my primary chat program, both friends and family.

It's supposed to be end to end encrypted, but who really knows.

In its default mode it’s not encrypted.

iMessage rules them all but a close second is...Signal FTW!

Signal has had CIA funding since its beginning.  I don't trust them as far as I can throw them.