Mark Zuckerberg issued Facebook users major warning over little known Messenger change

Do be careful what you get up to when you're messaging someone as there are measures in place to make sure the other person knows what you're up to.

They'll know that the hovering dots mean you're tying, they'll know when you've seen their messages and they'll also know if you try to screenshot things they've sent which were set to disappear.

Yes, one of the features of many messaging apps is the ability to let what you've sent expire after a time so you're talking instead of leaving a permanent conversation log which someone can always dig back into.

Your reasons for wanting messages to vanish are your own, but when the feature was rolled out to Facebook Messenger there was a warning from Mark Zuckerberg to people who might try and get around this with a screenshot.

The Facebook founder demonstrated what this would look like in a chat between himself and his wife Priscilla Chan, with her turning on disappearing messages and then taking a screenshot that resulted in a notification being posted to the chat.

The feature revealed when someone screenshotted a disappearing message. (Mark Zuckerberg)

Vanish Mode was announced back in November 2020, with the company revealing it would be hitting Messenger and Instagram in the US ‘soon’ before being rolled out to other countries at a later date.

It allows users to set a timer on how soon they want their message to disappear.

Facebook, or should we say Meta these days, explained: “We’ve also updated the expiring message feature within our end-to-end encrypted chats.

“People don’t always want or need their messages to stick around and the timer controls let someone decide when their messages expire in the chat.

“We’ve updated this setting to provide more options for people in the chat to choose the amount of time before all new messages disappear, from as few as 5 seconds to as long as 24 hours.”

Rival messaging apps, including Snapchat, already allow users to set their messages to self-destruct after a few hours.

It's a common feature for many messaging apps.(Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

The update announcement shared by Zuckerberg garnered mixed reviews from Facebook users who at least thought it was better late than never, with one person writing: “I really needed this feature in 2009 when I used to drunk message!”

Another commented: “Thanks for the heads up, Mark! Thank you for not letting us make fools out of ourselves by taking screenshots.”

While someone else said: “Pls add this feature on WhatsApp we want to know if someone takes a screenshot of our conversations.”

However, not everyone was on board - one Messenger user asked: “What is the benefit of being notified after taking a screenshot?”

Another said: "Zuckerberg is now going to show when someone took a screenshot of a convo in messenger.... what a grass."

While others jokingly accused the app of becoming a ‘snitch’.

Additional words by Claire Reid.

Topics: Technology, Facebook, Social Media, Mark Zuckerberg

Joe Harker

Joe graduated from the University of Salford with a degree in Journalism and worked for Reach before joining the LADbible Group. When not writing he enjoys the nerdier things in life like painting wargaming miniatures and chatting with other nerds on the internet. He's also spent a few years coaching fencing. Contact him via [email protected]

@MrJoeHarker