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Facebook Messenger now has Unsend Feature that enables you ‘take back’ what you send up to 10 mins ago

by Felix Omondi
Just like WhatsApp and Viber, Facebook Messenger to get End-to-End Encryption

Earlier this year, there were reports that Facebook CEO had this super ability to send messages on the social network and then take them back right out of the recipient’s inbox. At the time, it was a beta feature only availed to a few privileged members at the company. Well, it seems the company is ready to take the feature global, as it has already rolled out the Facebook Messenger Unsend Feature to users in Lithuania, Colombia, Bolivia, and Poland.

According to TechCrunch, the Facebook Messenger Unsend Feature is available to users in the above-mentioned regions across both Android and iOS devices. The user can ‘take back’ their messages within the first 10 minutes of hitting the send button. Longer than that, they will not be able to delete the message from the recipient’s inbox.

However, the recipient will see a marker on their end showing them that an incoming message was deleted. Hopefully for you as the sender, the recipient opens their Messenger app after you have been able to delete the message.

Delete not just Text, but Images, Videos, Links…

The Unsend Feature on Messenger enables you to not just delete text messages. You can also delete images, videos, links, and audio sent. To use the feature, you need to tap and hold on the specific message (sent within the last 10 minutes) and select Remove.

Remove for You or Remove for Everyone

The Messenger Unsend feature is cognizant of the fact that there are times you need to remove evidence of a particular message on just your end. In which case, it gives you the option of ‘Remove for You.’ This option is particularly handy if you are certain someone else will be looking through your messages, and at the same time confident the recipient will not share with someone else the details of your private conversations.

Then again, there are those time you want the message completely gone, on your end and the recipient’s end. In which case, the ‘Remove for Everyone’ option would be most ideal. Scenarios, when this option would come to your rescue, is when you send the wrong person a message; it happens all the time, even to the best of us. Or perhaps, you send a message with typos or change your mind about what you said in the message.

Not so fast Cyberbullies

Just because you Unsend a message does not necessarily mean it has been deleted forever. On the contrary, the message will remain temporarily on Facebook servers. This is a safety measure by Facebook to discourage cyberbullying.

We can all imagine a scenario where a hateful cyberbully sends demeaning messages to someone and relying on this Unsend Feature to cover evidence of it. In which case, the recipient will have the option of contacting Facebook for the evidence.

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