Messenger

The system known as Facebook Messenger has now been around for 10 years. The folks behind the Messenger app and "Messaging Products" at Facebook reminded the world this week that the behind-the-scenes sending of text and media has been available to the public for a full decade this week - it's a birthday! As such, the company is using the opportunity to launch some new features and attempt to keep all of your family members in the fold.

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Just because your WhatsApp messages may be end-to-end encrypted, doesn't mean Facebook won't one day potentially be able to use the contents for advertising. While one of the big assumptions about encryption has been that the messaging platforms themselves aren't privy to what you're discussing with your contacts, a new push to develop homomorphic encryption techniques could change the stakes.

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Facebook is primarily a social networking platform but it shouldn't be a surprise to anyone these days that it has grown far past that narrow definition. The tech giant has its hands in pretty much anything that can be associated with being social, including virtual reality or even money. Going beyond the usual culprits of product ads and purchasing stuff on Facebook, it has turned its Messenger platform into a P2P money transfer service of its own, one that may have just become easier in Facebook's latest update.

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Facebook has updated Messenger with some new features, including additional themes for stylizing the messaging app. Users get two new themes, including one based on Star Wars and another styled after the Netflix show Selena: The Series. As well, Facebook is making it easier to manage the chat threads in your Messenger inbox.

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It has been quite a while since Facebook surprisingly acquired Oculus but, for the longest time, the social network allowed the pioneering VR platform to operate in its own bubble. That has been changing lately, and not exactly in good ways, with Facebook enforcing its account to even use the standalone Quest headsets. A side effect of that, however, is some deeper integration with Facebook's products, like those who need to keep chatting away on Messenger even in virtual reality.

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It seems that Facebook is setting itself up as an enemy of endeavors to protect privacy even as it tries to argue how such attempts do more harm than good. In Europe, it is trying to explain why some features in Facebook, Messenger, and Instagram have suddenly become unavailable in order to comply with the Privacy and Electronic Communications Directive (ePrivacy Directive). In the same breath, however, it is also suggesting that this new regulation could actually put users in more danger because Facebook won't be able to report harmful content and activity.

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Facebook has been on the receiving end of a lot of legislative inquiries and litigations around the world and it has lost many of those fights in Europe. It's not surprising, then, that it is trying to be too careful now that the region has passed new privacy-related rules. European of the social media giant's instant messaging services in Messenger and Instagram (which recently "merged") might now see a worrying notification when they try to use features. Facebook reassures that this situation is only temporary.

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A Facebook Messenger bug discovered earlier this year was revealed this week by a security researcher. This bug worked with the Facebook Messenger call system, taking advantage of a loophole that let an attacker make a phone call and auto-answer said call on the receiver's end. With this bug, an attacker could effectively listen to you through your phone without your knowledge.

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Once upon a time, Snapchat's unique feature was its ephemeral posts that helped protect user's privacy, especially for more compromising content. Since then, however, almost all social networks and instant messaging platforms have implemented a similar feature or at least tried to. It definitely took a while but Facebook is finally catching up and has announced a new Vanish Mode that's coming to its own Messenger app and Instagram in the coming days.

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Facebook Messenger has been going through some big changes lately, and now it looks like Facebook is going to cap things off by giving the app a new look. This redesign of sorts is shipping out beginning today, and though it's somewhat basic, Facebook says that it represents a "shift to the future of messaging" that's more dynamic and integrated.

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Facebook's latest move with Instagram - this week - was to integrate several "familiar features" from Messenger. If you have no issue whatsoever with Facebook as a company or a social media entity, this shouldn't be much concern to your personal wellbeing. If, on the other hand, you've been using Instagram since inception and have been bummed to find Facebook's acquisition of the property meant it'd be integrated into The Social Network further, and further, and further... today is another dark day.

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The COVID-19 pandemic has forced a lot of activity that used to be done in-person to move online. Work is being done remotely and friends are chatting in video calls instead of getting together in-person. In response to this massive shift toward online collaboration and communication, we've seen a number of companies roll out new features and functionality. Facebook has been building out Messenger's feature set as the pandemic progresses, and today it added a new tool called Watch Together.

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