Facebook Messenger has introduced the ‘Unsend’ feature and made it available for all users. This is not very different from the feature you enjoy in Facebook-owned WhatsApp messaging service. In the case of Facebook, the users are allowed the option to delete a message they send before the expiry of 10 minutes from the time the message is sent. This option has been available in beta form for some time and was possibly accessible only to Facebook insiders, including its CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Facebook Messenger will provide this option in both the private one-on-one chat window and with group messaging.
Again, like in the case of WhatsApp, you have the option to choose to delete the message for yourself or for everyone.
Facebook has sent out a communication giving out details of how users may have sent a message in the wrong window or felt the message was wrongly worded or would simply want it deleted. And the process to delete messages with this “Unsend” feature is not very difficult to follow either. You simply go to the message and press it hard. The delete option pops up. You can then choose between deleting it for yourself or for everyone and you are done.
This move by Facebook to formalise this “Unsend” feature was preceded by an interesting episode in which a message sent by CEO Zuckerberg did the vanishing act and people were curious to know how it happened. It was then shared that such a feature for deleting sent messages exists. Naturally, there was some kind of backlash on social media on how Facebook was depriving its users of features they should be entitled to. It was then that the company agreed to extend the feature to all users.
The update to include this Facebook Messenger “Unsend” feature is now said to be available on all devices, PCs and mobiles and on both Android and iOS versions of the Facebook Messenger app.