Meta to cease cross-app communication chats between Instagram and Messenger
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San Francisco: Meta, the parent company of social media platforms Facebook and Instagram, has announced the discontinuation of its cross-platform messaging feature that allowed communication between accounts on both platforms.
After three years of enabling users to chat across services, Meta will restrict messaging solely to the platform in use, reverting to the previous system.
The decision to discontinue cross-app messaging comes within the anticipated timeframe for Meta's implementation of end-to-end encryption (E2EE) on Messenger, slated to be activated by the end of the year. A recently updated Instagram support page outlines the forthcoming change, stating that support for cross-app communication chats will be deactivated by mid-December.
Once this functionality is disabled, ongoing chats between users on Instagram and Messenger will transition to a read-only mode. Participants will retain access to their chat history but will be unable to send new messages across platforms.
Following the implementation of this change, initiating new chats between Facebook Messenger and Instagram users will no longer be feasible. Similarly, existing cross-platform chats will not be automatically transferred to the other app.
The alteration in cross-platform functionality also entails the removal of features like Activity Status and read receipts for Facebook users. This means that users won't be able to view online statuses or message-read statuses across both platforms. To continue chatting with friends across Instagram and Messenger, users will have to start new chats within the same app.
While Meta hasn't explicitly disclosed the reason for discontinuing cross-app communication between Instagram and Facebook Messenger, this decision aligns with the company's efforts to introduce default end-to-end encryption for Messenger.
The upcoming encryption feature aims to enhance user privacy by securing one-to-one chats from any potential third-party visibility, a move similar to the existing encrypted chats on WhatsApp.
