Mean Girls (2004). Paramount Pictures.
In 2012, Facebook bought Instagram for one billion dollars, before acquiring WhatsApp for 19 billion dollars in 2014. Last weekend, the social media conglomerate announced it would be combining the messenger services across all three platforms, and we are not so sure it’s a good thing.
Everyone has a certain circle of people that they are connected to on each of these platforms, but there are also people that you desperately don’t want to mix up. For instance, you may not mind having your therapist on WhatsApp, but Facebook may be too personal. Conversely, you may not mind having old classmates on Facebook, but you don’t necessarily want them to have your telephone number. John Verdi of the Washington DC think tank, Future of Privacy Forum, says that this is because the different services are based on people knowing different things about you. “Facebook messenger is based on the premise that you use that app to communicate with your friend circle on Facebook, people who you have chosen to connect with. WhatsApp is based on people who know your mobile phone number and those two groups may be different,” he explains. “Instagram is not based on a mutual friendship, but following.”
Many of us are not quite ready for these worlds to collide – especially bearing in mind one of Facebook’s creepier features, the infamously weird, “People You May Know.” One of the ways in which Facebook determines which people it tries to connect you with is the option of uploading your contacts. By merging the phone number-based platform with Facebook Messenger, it is unclear whether or not this will remain a choice.
“Facebook messenger is based on the premise that you use that app to communicate with your friend circle on Facebook, people who you have chosen to connect with. WhatsApp is based on people who know your mobile phone number and those two groups may be different,” he explains. “Instagram is not based on a mutual friendship, but following.”
Beyond the potential loss of control, these platforms operate on different technology and Facebook has yet to say which a combined messaging app would employ. WhatsApp uses end-to-end encryption – meaning only the people on the two ends can see the message – whereas Instagram and Facebook Messenger do not. While this plays a role in the security of the message, it also affects what parts of your communications can be used to target ads. “Employing end to end encryption does not prevent serving an ad, but it does prevent it from scanning the contents of the message in order to target the ad,” Verdi says. Data like location and phone number area codes, could still be used to target ad content, but the eerie phenomenon of seeing keywords from messages appear in advertising can be avoided.
One area where the integration might be helpful is to stop the spread of fake news. “Some of the measures Facebook takes to combat fake news are siloed within these three messaging platforms,” Verdi says. “Some of there efforts may be less effective because these identities are separated.” With three platforms linked to one account holder it would be easier to shut down people spreading fake news across different platforms, but it would also mean that anyone Facebook wanted to silence could be more easily silenced across all platforms.
Not many details of the actual integration plans have been released, but Facebook said that the changes are set to occur in 2020.