Facebook-owned messaging app, Facebook Messenger currently used by over 900 million people globally has become the latest social media mobile application to roll out encryption as a feature on its app, thus making certain conversations completely private.
The new feature will be called “Secret Conversations” and will exist within the regular app similar to an incognito tab in your web browser.
The app, , takes its lead from its sister-app WhatsApp which rolled out end-to-end encryption for its 1 billion users across all devices early in April.
You can now start a secret chat with any Facebook friend and the thread will be totally end-to-end encrypted, which means only the people communicating can access messages sent.
Within this secret conversation, you can also choose to set a timer to control the length of time each message you send remains visible within the conversation. According to company, the technology they used here is, the Signal Protocol developed by Open Whisper Systems.[related-posts]
The company has pointed out that in secret conversations, they won’t currently support rich content like GIFs and videos, making payments, or other popular Messenger features.
This test is available on a limited test basis right now, but it will be made widely available this summer.
