Facebook is planing on bringing Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram together by giving users the power to message one another across all three apps. The strategy is part of Mark Zuckerberg’s plan to revitalize Facebook’s fortunes in the wake of a torrent of privacy scandals. The update could arrive by the end of the year, or early 2020, and fortunately for Zuckerberg, there’s no one left to oppose his plans now that both Instagram and WhatsApp’s founders have departed.
As part of the reconfiguration, Facebook will reportedly add end-to-end encryption, a feature currently limited to WhatsApp and available optionally on Messenger, across all three platforms. The decision to focus on privacy comes amidst increasing criticism from Apple CEO Tim Cook, who’s been calling for industry-wide regulations.
According to reliable sources, the app trio will remain as stand-alone entities. After the changes take effect, a Facebook user could send an encrypted message to someone who has only a WhatsApp account, for example. Currently, that isn’t possible because the apps are separate.
“As you would expect, there is a lot of discussion and debate as we begin the long process of figuring out all the details of how this will work,” Facebook said in a statement to the New York Times.
