Mr. Zuckerberg, who runs Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger, on Wednesday expressed his intentions to change the essential nature of social media. Instead of encouraging public posts, he said he would focus on private and encrypted communications, in which users message mostly smaller groups of people they know.
He said Facebook would achieve the shift partly by integrating Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger so that users worldwide could easily message one another across the networks.
Facebooks plan in which the company is playing catch-up to how people are already communicating digitally raises new questions, not the least of which is whether it can realistically pull off a privacy-focused platform. While the company will not eradicate public sharing, a proliferation of private and secure communications could potentially hurt its business model.
Facebook also faces concerns about what the change means for peoples data and whether it was being anti-competitive by knitting together WhatsApp, Instagram and Messenger, which historically have been separate and operated autonomously.
Mr. Zuckerberg was vague on many details of the shift, including how long it would take to enact and whether that meant Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger would share user information and other contact details with one another.
In addition, WhatsApp, Instagram and Messenger will remain stand-alone apps, even as their underlying messaging infrastructures are woven together, The Times previously reported.Original article