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One of the The last major firewalls that stand between the Facebook family of apps are no more – as of today, Instagram users can message people on Facebook and vice versa. How? Messenger, the messaging app owned by Facebook, has made its way into Instagram direct messages. An update replaces direct messages on Instagram with Messenger, which will be integrated within the application. It is not necessary to download the Messenger application separately, as the Facebook application still requires it; no need to link your Facebook account, or even have a Facebook account.
The update is a significant step towards a vision put forward by Mark Zuckerberg last year to unite the messaging systems on Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, which between them have more than 2.6 billion users. “We want to give people an option so that they can communicate with their friends through these networks from the application of their choice,” the CEO wrote at the time. In addition to the convenience, it touted the security and privacy advantages, namely end-to-end encryption, which has been the default on WhatsApp since 2016.
End-to-end encryption is also part of what makes platform merging so complicated. Facebook engineers told WIRED earlier this year that making encryption the default in Messenger will take years, and therefore will be a full integration of all three apps.
Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram, confirmed that full end-to-end encryption remains on the company’s map, but did not say when it will get there. Meanwhile, Wednesday’s update introduces some other privacy features. A new “Vanish mode” lets you make messages disappear, modeled after ephemeral messaging platforms like Snapchat. “Disappearing” messages are not encrypted; Instagram says it will keep them for reporting purposes. Facebook Messenger also has a disappearing message option, called Secret Conversations, but that feature allows individual messages to be encrypted.
There are at least a few new features designed to keep Instagram and Facebook friends separate – you can choose not to receive messages from people on Facebook, for example, and you can choose not to link the accounts at all. The update also doesn’t combine the inboxes: messages on Instagram will stay in the Instagram app, while messages on the separate Messenger app will stay there. Threads, Instagram’s standalone messaging app for close friends and family, remains unchanged.
Facebook, for its part, sees this consolidation as a way to maintain standards across all its platforms. Your work on “integrity”, which involves managing the risk of electoral interference and misinformation, will carry over from Facebook Messenger to the new Instagram Messenger. Message forwarding, one of the new updates on Instagram, will have the same limits that Facebook introduced for Messenger earlier this month. And the same tools for reporting suspicious activity or blocking unwanted messages will now be available in both apps.
Other new messaging features (there are 10 in total) are designed to make it easier to talk to people, whether they are connected to you on Instagram or Facebook. There is a way to send “selfie stickers”, similar to the Line messaging app. You can send emoji reactions and reply to specific messages, just like in iMessage. “There are many basic features that have been missing for a long time,” says Mosseri.
Mosseri says the updates should make Instagram just another destination for chatting with friends. Right now, people think of the app as a place to share photos, follow influencers, or shop for clothes, rather than a messaging space. By incorporating Messenger features into the app, Mosseri says, “we can give people a more engaging experience to help us compete, particularly in the US, where we feel like we are behind.”
