Meta interrupts the chat link between Facebook and Instagram to please the EU?
With Threads about to debut on EU soil, Meta has decided to resolve the link between Facebook and Instagram chats, probably to reach out to the EU Commission
Like a bolt from the blue, Meta decided to "uncross" the chats between Facebook and Instagram, its two very popular social networks in its portfolio, after having crossed them in the summer of the pandemic, in 2020. What changes and why did it go back?
CHAT INTEGRATION BETWEEN FACEBOOK AND INSTAGRAM
Facebook had decided to unify Messenger and Instagram chats already in 2019 and then made the project effective just over three years ago. All this with an announcement which, as we wrote in Start Magazine , reached users on the Old Continent via an app alert (for both Android and iOS).
In the name of this integration, direct messages on Instagram had been linked to Facebook's Messenger chat and the graphic appearance of the photo app had also changed with a colored interface (the sender's messages changed between blue and purple while scrolls), presenting the Facebook Messenger icon in place of the Direct Message icon. And then it became possible, as is done on Messenger, to assign a reaction to the message and reply directly to a message by selecting it.
NOW META GO BACK
Meta's plans probably included the desire to integrate WhatsApp as well. A way to be able to boast an audience of users that is, to say the least, endless, numbers to be weighed at a contractual level in the event that it decides – as per the rumor – to introduce banners for Adv within its messaging apps (for the moment However, Mark Zuckerberg's giant denies wanting to open Wapp to advertising ).
However, at least in Europe, this path will almost certainly not be followed. Mark Zuckerberg's house has expressed its intention to interrupt the integration between Messenger and Instagram starting from mid-December 2023. In short, in just a few days.
It will therefore no longer be possible for users to start new conversations or calls with Facebook accounts from Instagram while existing ones will become read-only, preventing the sending of new messages and it will no longer be possible to view the activity status or reading receipts.
WHAT IS THE DIETROFRONT DUE TO?
At the moment Meta has not explained anything. But it is easy to imagine that the Digital Markets Act (DMA), adopted by the European Union last year in order to allow the European Commission the power to impose fines of up to 10% of a company's global turnover, has something to do with it once again. company in case of violation of the law on monopolies in the Tech world.
#Instagram is considering removing the ability to chat with #Facebook friends after mid-October pic.twitter.com/LSkq09lv7s
— Alessandro Paluzzi (@alex193a) August 31, 2023
What is certain is that once again the Italian developer Alessandro Paluzzi, a well-known insider, was right, given that he had predicted all this well in advance, at the end of August. If we add to this that Paluzzi has also identified the inclusion of tags such as "Threads EU Launch" in the code of the app of the same name, the two things could even be connected.
THE STRATEGY FOR THE ARRIVAL OF THREADS IN THE EU
Threads, in fact, has postponed the debut of "its from others without necessarily having to register an account and create your own profile.
In this case, if there is no profiling, Meta would have to pass through the increasingly narrow community regulations that regulate profiling and the collection of personal data. And the decision to automatically dissolve Facebook and Instagram chats could constitute a way of extending an olive branch to the EU Commission.
Having already an open front in the Iberian Peninsula , where the Facebook holding will be dragged to court to face a half-billion euro lawsuit by 83 Spanish media who have denounced Meta for unfair competition in advertising, it is likely that Zuckerberg's giant does not want to take any further risks, especially with Brussels.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/innovazione/meta-interrompe-lincrocio-di-chat-tra-facebook-e-instagram-per-compiacere-lue/ on Fri, 08 Dec 2023 08:23:53 +0000.