Earlier this year, it was reported that messages sent on Messenger by founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg were secretly deleted. That was not normal because deleting your messages from a conversation just deletes messages from showing in your side of the conversation and it still remains in the recipient’s inbox. It was obviously the abuse of power by Zuckerberg.
Later, Facebook confirmed that the company is planning to bring an “unsend” feature for everyone that will allow users to unsend a message on Messenger but didn’t give us any timeline. We thought this is just a statement to justify the deletion of Zuckerberg’s messages from several users’ inbox. Still, we were waiting for the feature the company promised.
Now a Twitter user (@wongmjane) found this feature on her Messenger app. She published the screenshots of a prototype Unsend button. She also added that users can only send a message in a certain amount of time after they send. So, it is like a time window to fix your mistake and take back your words.
Image: Jane Manchun Wong / Twitter
The unsend feature will be useful for people who mistakenly or intentionally sent an inappropriate message and want to erase evidence of their misdeeds. But it can also become a tool for abusing people online and then removing all the evidence.
It is worth to note that Instagram already has this option and users can unsend messages. Now implementing that will not be tough on Facebook, but the company must give users an option to report or flag inappropriate messages that have been retracted.
