14 DAY TRIAL // User privacy is an ongoing concern for every giant in the technology field, as well as for end users. Some applications, like Snapchat, already support self-destructing messages, and it seems that the most prolific of them all, Facebook, has decided to join the trend.
It had long been rumored that Facebook was considering such a move back in November, when it launched such a test-case in France. It was said that the self-destruct feature would allow users to set messages to disappear one hour after they were sent, regardless of whether they were read or not.
Now it looks like the company is testing this feature at a larger scale, but only on iOS. Screenshots provided by @iOSAppChanges on Twitter clearly display an in-line Messenger conversation with the user having the option to set the messages to disappear 1 minute after they were sent.
Users will be able to adjust the self-destruct interval and set messages to be automatically deleted after one day. It also doesn’t matter whether the message was seen or not. This feature could be quite useful when sharing sensitive information, like phone numbers or addresses.
Tested only on iOS versions of the app, for now
It seems that the self-destruct feature will only be available as part of Messenger for iOS version 68.0, but we’re expecting to see it on other platforms as well, since Facebook hasn’t disappointed so far when it comes to platform feature parity.
WhatsApp also launched a new version of its app with strong encryption capabilities, which, in theory, makes messages impossible to read by unauthorized parties, WhatsApp/Facebook included. Therefore, it’s no wonder that Facebook would want to consider such a capability for the Messenger app.
In addition, Facebook is developing a "secret chat" feature, much like the Telegram's version with end-to-end encryption for enhanced privacy. Another rumor about Facebook came after the recent company pairing with KLM airlines, which paves the way for checking flight information, getting flight status updates, and contacting customer service through Messenger.
