That will start by allowing you to message between Facebook services, but Facebook eventually wants to make Instagram Direct, WhatsApp, and Messenger interoperable with SMS. In addition to making messaging more private, Zuckerberg also plans to make messaging interoperable. The services will eventually become “a platform for many other kinds of private services,” he writes. In his post, Zuckerberg says private, encrypted messaging tools will also create room for new business tools - especially ones around payments and commerce, the company’s current pet obsessions.
It could also represent a business opportunity. Zuckerberg is now using the promise of encryption to sweeten the deal - and attempt to reverse years of reputational damage by proclaiming a near-religious belief in the power of privacy. News of that move spurred criticism that it represented one more massive data-collection play from Facebook, which once promised European regulators that it would keep WhatsApp user data separate from its other services. End-to-end encryption will become standard across Facebook’s suite of messaging apps - a feat enabled by the unification of the back-end technology that powers them, a move first reported by The New York Times earlier this year. To achieve his goal, Zuckerberg says Facebook’s messaging platforms will evolve to more closely resemble WhatsApp. “This is the future I hope we will help bring about.“ “I believe the future of communication will increasingly shift to private, encrypted services where people can be confident what they say to each other stays secure and their messages and content won’t stick around forever,” Zuckerberg says. Facebook has spent the past two years mired in scandals around data privacy, starting with last year’s revelations around Cambridge Analytica and continuing through the biggest data breach in company history. Public social networks have their place, Zuckerberg adds, but he sees a large future opportunity built on “a simpler platform that’s focused on privacy first.” That would mark a sharp reversal for Facebook, which has grown into one of the world’s wealthiest companies by inventing exotic new methods of personal data collection and allowing brands to sell advertising against it. “I believe the future of communication will increasingly shift to private, encrypted services”