Following a TechCrunch report published last April, the tech site showcased how Mark Zuckerberg was able to delete some of his messages on Facebook when nobody could do the same. Instagram has an unsend feature and the same is for WhatsApp then why not Facebook, you may ask? To answer this question, Facebook has finally launched the unsend feature on Facebook Messenger app for both iOS and Android.
To put things into context, some users reported that some of the messages from Mark Zuckerberg that they received were deleted. In fact, messages dating back as early as 2010 were deleted from Facebook. This caused a lot of stir on the internet after which, head honchos on Facebook stated that Mark Zuckerberg will not be able to use this feature until it is publicly available and now is that time.
If you open the Facebook Messenger app, you’ll see ‘Delete’ option on every message you send. But hey, it’s misleading because it is actually ‘Delete for you’. This means that the recipient can still see the message that you deleted. However, with the unsend feature, the user can delete any regretful joke or quote or statement or an ill-fated or accidentally sent an image or video within ten minutes after sending the message. Simply long press on the message you want to delete and select ‘Delete for everyone’ and Facebook will take care of it.
The feature is still rolling out and would take days or even a week to pop up on all Android and iOS devices. Meanwhile, note that Facebook will delete the ‘unsend’ messages from its servers as well after keeping it for a limited amount of time in case someone reports the sender and these messages will be handy in concluding to the abuse report.
As per why Mark Zuckerberg was allowed to use this feature, a representative at Facebook said that it was to protect higher officials such as Mark due to security purposes. This was in response to the 2014 incident were ‘Sony Pictures’ emails were hacked. Tell us what do you think about the feature in the comments below.