The headline must have surely scared you but that’s not the whole truth. As you might know, Meta continues to pull the plug on many features that have been taken for granted on Messenger for many years. The messaging app is now losing access to Instagram users, which means the cross-platform chats that were possible between Instagram and Messenger, Meta is shutting that down.
The new changes will be coming into effect from mid-December onwards which could be around December 15. Meta hasn’t given any specific reasons for making these changes but it has been suggested that the company is looking to comply with the Digital Markets Act (DMA) that is bringing stringent rules for tech companies like Meta and Apple.
The new rules mandate apps like Instagram to support messaging with other non-Meta apps and it is likely that Meta is planning for those changes by cutting off the links between Instagram and Messenger, as both are in-house apps. So, what does the new changes mean for users and does it apply to all Messenger users? The support page detailing the news says people will not be able to use their Facebook account on Instagram for calls or messages. Besides these, you will also see the following changes:
– Previous chats you had using Facebook account will now be read-only and you won’t be able to send anymore chats in that thread.
– Facebook ID cannot be used to see the Activity Status or get alerts for messages
– Any chat you had using the other person’s Facebook ID will not be available in Facebook’s inbox.
The DMA has already pulled up Apple and forced the company to first use the USB C port for iPhones, which became a reality with this year’s iPhone 15 series. The company is also being pushed to allow third-party app stores on iOS and also give access to other search engines on iPhones as their default option.
But coming back to the matter of Messenger, Meta seems to have lost interest in the platform. Messenger Lite app was recently shut down on Android, while the original Messenger app lost support for SMS from September this year as well.
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