Facebook Might Allow Inter Messaging Between WhatsApp, Messenger and Instagram Users: Report

Facebook is currently working towards integrating its chat services — WhatsApp, Messenger, and photo-sharing app Instagram — to let their users to message each other across platforms. All of the three apps will support end-to-end encryption, but Facebook is yet to provide a timeline for when this will happen, The New York Times reported late on Friday. “Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chief executive, plans to integrate the social network’s messaging services — WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook Messenger — asserting his control over the company’s sprawling divisions at a time when its business has been battered by scandal,” the Times said.

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However, the chat and photo-sharing services would continue to operate as stand-alone apps. “Their underlying technical infrastructure will be unified, said four people involved in the effort. That will bring together three of the world’s largest messaging networks, which between them have more than 2.6 billion users, allowing people to communicate across the platforms for the first time,” the report added.

The move could let the social networking giant tout higher user engagement to advertisers, thus, ramping up its advertising division at a time when growth has slowed down. Facebook has the most users of any other social media platform, and by combining its assets this way, the company could more directly compete with Apple’s iMessage and Google’s messaging services, according to The Verge.

WhatsApp’s End-to-End Encryption to Get Weaker With This Move

WhatsApp’s end-to-end encryption — the hallmark of users’ security — may go for a toss if Facebook integrates the popular mobile messaging platform with not-that-secure Instagram and Messenger. According to a report in The Wired on Saturday, to universally preserve end-to-end encryption poses a whole additional set of critical challenges for Facebook.

WhatsApp chats are currently end-to-end encrypted by default. Facebook Messenger offers the feature if you turn on “Secret Conversations.” “Instagram does not currently offer any form of end-to-end encryption for its chats,” the report said.