Skip to main content

Digital Trends may earn a commission when you buy through links on our site. Why trust us?

Facebook will soon let everyone unsend messages, just like Zuckerberg

Image used with permission by copyright holder

Private messages from Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg are disappearing mysteriously from Facebook Messenger inboxes — and soon, you’re going to be able to do exactly the same thing with your friends.

If you’re a user of Facebook Messenger, then you might be aware that while you can delete the messages that you send, that only removes the message from your copy of the conversation — anyone else in the conversation is still able to see it, whether that be a one-on-one or group conversation. Following the uproar around these deletions, Facebook has stated that it is developing an “unsend” option in Messenger, and that it will be available in a few months. Until that time, Facebook has also said it will not be deleting any more executive personal messages.

Recommended Videos

While Zuckerberg himself declined to comment on the situation, a Facebook representative clarified that the deletions concerned corporate security: “After Sony Pictures’ emails were hacked in 2014 we made a number of changes to protect our executives’ communications. These included limiting the retention period for Mark’s messages in Messenger. We did so in full compliance with our legal obligations to preserve messages.”

Essentially, Facebook appears to have put a retention timer on the messages of some executive members of staff, deleting them from the system after a certain amount of time has passed. Facebook security justification does stand up to scrutiny on the subject, as a standard message deletion would only remove the message from the sender’s account, and hackers could potentially access the inbox of the recipient in order to read the message and potentially make off with Facebook’s secrets.

While it’s certainly within Facebook’s rights to protect its corporate interests, this revelation comes at the wrong time for Zuckerberg’s company. The treatment, or mistreatment, of user data has been an issue on Facebook for a long time, but it has been recently thrown back into public attention by the actions of Cambridge Analytica, a company that is accused of abusing Facebook’s data to alter the public’s perceptions on key issues. In response, Facebook has altered the way it allows apps to gather data, but that doesn’t seem to be enough for various governments around the world, with many having launched investigations of the service.

Key to the issue is the control that Facebook has over the messages sent between users. While Facebook’s service is clearly under its own control, questions of user trust naturally arise when data is altered without user knowledge. With data becoming the currency of the new age, these questions will remain a central focus of public debate for some time yet.

Mark Jansen
Mobile Evergreen Editor
Mark Jansen is an avid follower of everything that beeps, bloops, or makes pretty lights. He has a degree in Ancient &…
Instagram is undoing its TikTok-like changes you hated so much
New features for Instagram Reels

Popular social media service Instagram is reconsidering its pivot to a TikTok-style video feed after recent changes proved to be highly unpopular with its fan base.

Over the past several weeks, Instagram has been testing a version of the app that opened into a feed of full-screen photos and videos, seemingly attempting to morph the service into something that more closely resembles TikTok. Similarly, the new feed also disproportionately pushes seemingly random "recommended" posts, squeezing out content from those folks that Instagram users have actually chosen to follow.

Read more
Facebook is courting creators with a new Music Revenue Sharing
Facebook Website

A new revenue sharing program from Meta now allows Facebook video creators to make money off of videos that include licensed music.

On Monday, Meta announced via a blog post the launch of Music Revenue Sharing, a new program that lets creators earn money on videos that include "licensed music from popular artists."

Read more
Facebook’s new Feeds tab emphasizes chronological posts
A smartphone with the Facebook app icon on it all on a white marble background.

If you'd prefer to view more of your loved ones' Facebook posts in chronological order, Facebook has a new mobile app feature for you.

On Thursday, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced via a Facebook post a new feature for your Facebook feed called the Feeds tab.

Read more