Over the past few weeks, Facebook has been under the cosh from the media and its users alike. Facebook was accused of leaking private data of over 50 million users which were used by Cambridge Analytica during the 2016 US Presidential Elections. However, the outrage around Facebook and callous handling of sensitive data have increased when it was learned that Facebook deleted messages sent out by Mark Zuckerberg from the recipients’ inbox. It now appears that Facebook is ready to share this luxury with all of its users in the coming months.
According to a report by TechCrunch, a Facebook spokesperson has confirmed that the social networking company is currently working on the ‘Unsend’ feature’s development. This feature will soon be available for everyone across the globe. A few months ago, WhatsApp also rolled out a similar message wherein users could delete a sent message before it was read by the recipient.
However, it is worth noting that this feature will work very differently from WhatsApp’s. Another spokesperson told TechCrunch that the only way to implement ‘Unsend’ on Messenger is to set an expiration date for the message. This will, in fact, work very similar to what Snapchat has with its personal messages. Essentially, a user can set a timer on the message before pressing send, once the timer runs out, the message gets deleted. It is like a self-destruct mode but, for messages. It is not yet clear if the recipient will be made aware of the self-destruct mode of the messages they receive.
While it is okay to delete messages on WhatsApp because of the times you are either sending to or receiving from people you know, the implications of the ‘Unsend’ feature on Facebook are far more severe. On Facebook, users get a lot of messages from strangers which, if taken to court, can be used as evidence. Now, with the new feature, users will have to take a screenshot of every message they feel is important or suspicious.
