DISPLAY OF ENCRYPTED CONTENT ITEMS

A method of displaying content items, for example message items in a messaging application or service, is disclosed. The method comprises receiving encrypted content items in a chronological sequence; decrypting the content items; causing display of a display sequence, in order of the chronological sequence, of a respective place holder in place of each of the decrypted content items, and, in response to a user input, causing display of the respective content item in place of one or more of the place holders. Each place holder has an appearance of a scrambled version of the respective content item. The display sequence may be contiguous in received items or sent content items may be interleaved with received content items in the display sequence, in which case sent content items may be displayed with place holders in the same way as received items. A corresponding system and corresponding computer readable medium or media are also disclosed.