Facebook plans to make it possible for WhatsApp, Messenger and Instagram users to send messages to one another without switching apps. The three standalone apps will remain separate, but they’ll be brought together under a single user could speak to your Messenger-only friends without leaving WhatsApp.
Integrating the apps could help Facebook make more money from ads. As more of its users to spend more time texting in its chat apps rather than turning to other texting services by Apple and Google .
The resulting product would support end-to-end encryption and would allow any user of one of Facebook’s services to chat with any user of any of any other Facebook product. WhatsApp users would be able to talk to Instagram users and Facebook users without needing accounts on each platform.
“People really like this in WhatsApp. I think it’s the, it’s the direction that we should be going in with more things in the future. I think there’s an opportunity to use the work that we have done with WhatsApp there rather than doing it in different ways in the different messaging experiences,” Mark Zuckerberg said.
But the changes might not sit well with some Facebook users, who have become more wary about the data the company shares with other tech firms following a number of scandals. Last year, revelations surfaced that UK political consultancy Cambridge Analytica harvested the data of up to 87 million Facebook users without their permission.
Integrating Facebook Messenger with WhatsApp and Instagram might also make it harder for government regulators to break up the company. Its unclear what user information will be shared among Facebook Messenger, Instagram and WhatsApp.
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