Social media giant Facebook plans to “merge” the messaging networks of WhatsApp, Instagram and Messenger, according to several reports.
All three services will still function as standalone apps, but unification infrastructure will be implemented. The integration is set to happen by the end of this year or early 2020.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has reportedly requested that all of the applications are end-to-end encrypted, meaning a WhatsApp user could send a message to a Facebook user, despite using different platforms.
A spokesman for Facebook said, “We want to build the best messaging experiences we can; and people want messaging to be fast, simple, reliable and private.
“We’re working on making more of our messaging products end-to-end encrypted and considering ways to make it easier to reach friends and family across networks. 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.”
This is a startling shake-up for the world of social media. What do you think of the proposed plans?