Back in April, Facebook, CEO, Mark Zuckerberg retracted messages from the recipients’ inboxes which some saw it as a violation of trust and abuse of power since Facebook Messenger doesn’t have an unsend button. However, the company clarified that it would eventually allow everyone to use this functionality. Six months have passed by without the company announcing such a feature and now we may have our first look at the feature.
Facebook Messenger is finally working on “Unsend Message” in the app for everyone!
Tip @Techmeme pic.twitter.com/5OtQrmyID3
— Jane Manchun Wong (@wongmjane) October 12, 2018
When asked about the developments on ‘Unsend’ feature, the company said: “though we have nothing to announce today, we have previously confirmed that we intend to ship a feature like this and are still planning to do so.” However, famous tipster, Jane Manchun Wong managed to generate screenshots of a prototype of the Unsend button from Facebook Messenger’s Android code. At the current state, you can only delete messages from your own inbox, but they still remain in the recipients’ inbox.
But since it a prototype, you’re able to remove a message from both sides of a conversation. However, the code indicates that in the current prototype there’s a “time limit”. That may mean users would only have a certain amount of time after they send a message to unsend it much like WhatsApp. Facebook spokesperson confirming the same said: “Facebook internally tests products and features before they ship to the public, so we can ensure the quality of the experience.”
The Unsend feature could be useful to people as it gives users who might have said something inappropriate a chance to erase the message. But it can also be misleading as it removed evidence of harassment. Since it is in the testing phase, there’s no way to tell when it will be rolled out to users.