Facebook Messenger, Instagram and WhatsApp chats are going to merge – with a deadline of early 2020.
The buddy-up involves “thousands of Facebook employees” re-designing all three apps “at their most basic levels.”
Facebook Messenger, along with Facebook-owned WhatsApp and Instagram, will still exist as standalone apps.
But messaging functionality would be shared across them, so users on Instagram could text people on WhatsApp.
You could even message someone on Instagram without ever actually having an Instagram account.
The move was revealed in a New York Times exposé and later confirmed by Facebook.
It’s expected that the “integration” between the apps will be completed as soon as the end of 2019, or possibly early 2020.
Work on the project is already underway to unify the “messaging infrastructure” between the apps.
It means that all three apps will support end-to-end encryption, which Instagram currently lacks.
End-to-end encryption means your message is garbled into gibberish during transit and can only be read in its true form by the sender and recipient.
It’s an important privacy feature and already one of the defining features of WhatsApp.
But it won’t be easy.
“Given the spotty history Facebook have in managing user privacy settings, merging personal information and privacy configurations from three significant applications won’t be trivial,” said Tim Mackey, technical evangelist at Synopsys, speaking to The Sun.
“Facebook development teams would do well to look at this precedent and prioritize user privacy.
“With the integration project currently expected to take a year to complete and with end-to-end encryption as part of the plan, we should expect the Facebook engineering teams to focus attention on uniform data security both in their platform and in the apps themselves.”
Worryingly, child safety campaigners have warned that this could make child-grooming even easier for online sickos.
“The decision to merge and incorporate end-to-end encryption in all three apps means child abusers could find it easier to access more young victims and detecting grooming behavior and sexual abuse on these apps will become far more difficult,” said Andy Burrows, Associate Head of Child Online Safety at the NSPCC.
“Given that police have already told us that Facebook-owned apps are being used in more than half of grooming offenses, Facebook must explain how it took children into account when it made this decision.
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“This is precisely why the NSPCC’s Wild West Web campaign is calling on Government to introduce a tough independent regulator for social networks to force them to meet consistent child safety measures and hold them to account when they fail.”
According to the NYT, the idea is being masterminded by billionaire Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg.
It’s a bid to keep users hooked into the Facebook ecosystem – and avoid turning to rival offerings “from Apple and Google.”
Zuckerberg has reportedly been “floating” the idea for months but has been met with heavy opposition.
Instagram’s founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger abandoned the company late last year, reportedly due to Zuckerberg’s increased grip on the app.
And WhatsApp founders Jan Koum and Brian Acton also left for similar reasons.
Zuck is said to have “clashed with dozens of WhatsApp employees” over the merger during a staff meeting in December.
Part of the problem is that Facebook requires you to provide your real identity, while WhatsApp is often favored for its anonymity.
Merging the messaging services could create a privacy headache.
Users may also be put off by the prospect of messages from long-forgotten Facebook friends turning up on WhatsApp, for instance.
“As you would expect, there is a lot of discussion and debate as we begin the long process of figuring out all the details of how this will work,” a Facebook spokesperson told The Sun.
According to the report, Zuckerberg still isn’t sure how to make money from the merger.
Speaking to The Sun, industry expert Michael Pachter, of Wedbush Securities, said: “It’s an interesting issue since users aren’t really asking for integration, but Facebook recognizes that by integrating the products, they facilitate greater communication/interaction among their user base.
“I personally think it’s a great idea, but am not sure there is an immediate impact on revenues or profits.”
“The integration is likely going to roll out in a year or so and we will have to see how smoothly it goes before understanding the potential for monetization.”
In a statement given to The Sun, a Facebook spokesperson said the company hoped to “build the best messaging experiences we can – and people want messaging to be fast, simple, reliable and private”.
“We’re working on making more of our messaging products end-to-end encrypted and considering ways to make it easier to reach friends and family across networks.”
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