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Facebook Inc said on Wednesday that it would begin replacing the direct messaging service within Instagram with a version of its Messenger app, the first important step in its plan to unite messaging across its suite of apps.
The measure allows users of each service to search, send messages and make video calls with the other’s contacts without having to download both applications.
It also introduces features like custom emojis and themes that have been mainstays in Messenger but previously weren’t available in Instagram’s minimalist messaging product, along with new features like disappearing messages.
If users accept the update, the messaging icon on Instagram will change to the Messenger logo. As in Messenger, Instagram users, who have not been able to forward messages, can do so to a maximum of five people at the same time.
“The goal of this exercise is to get to the point where we build something once and then it works, so that we don’t have to repeat the same thing multiple times,” said Messenger boss Stan Chudnovsky.
Also read: After months of speculation, Facebook is starting to merge Instagram and Messenger chats
An initial rollout will start on Wednesday in some unspecified countries and then roll out globally soon.
CEO Mark Zuckerberg first announced a vision for cross-app messaging early last year. The company eventually aims to integrate WhatsApp and extend end-to-end encryption across all three services.
The move is likely to figure in antitrust deliberations over Facebook’s takeovers of Instagram and WhatsApp, which are the subject of multiple investigations.
Antitrust experts have raised concerns that bringing the services together could make it difficult for regulators to split the company.
Chudnovsky said that no new categories of user data would be exchanged between Instagram and Messenger beyond what has already been shared, as both messaging services have relied on the same back-end infrastructure for years.
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