Meta to cease cross-app conversations between Instagram and Facebook by mid-December

Meta has announced the discontinuation of cross-app communication between Facebook and Instagram, effective mid-December. The tech-giant, however, didn’t disclose the reason behind this decision. The European Union's Digital Markets Act (DMA) mandates large messaging apps to be interoperable with each other.

As per the latest update on Instagram's support page, users will no longer be able to initiate new conversations or calls with Facebook accounts from Instagram. To continue conversations with Facebook accounts, users can commence a new chat on Messenger or Facebook using their Facebook account. Upon the cessation of cross-app communication, existing chats on Instagram with Facebook accounts will become read-only, even if these Facebook accounts are removed from the chat. Consequently, users with Instagram accounts won't be able to send new messages in these chats.

Furthermore, any existing chats an Instagram user had with Facebook accounts will not transfer to the Facebook messenger. The Instagram Activity status will also automatically become unavailable for viewing through a Facebook account.

The development comes almost three years after Meta had introduced Messenger support for Instagram in 2020 enabling cross-platform messaging between Facebook and Instagram.

Meanwhile, recently Instagram introduced a feature allowing users to share their posts exclusively with a select group of ‘Close Friends’. In an Instagram broadcast, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that the readers can choose to share posts and reels with a restricted audience, through this feature.  

In order to activate the feature, users can select the 'audience' option when sharing a new post on their Instagram feed, and a pop-up window will appear, asking if they want to share it with their 'close friend' list, with an option to edit the list. Followers on the Close Friends list will be able to see each other's usernames when interacting with a post or Reel with limited access.

Meanwhile, in September this year, Meta launched generative AI assistant on Whatsapp, Instagram and Messenger. The company teamed up with celebrities such as Kendall Jenner, Snoop Dogg, Paris Hilton, and Naomi Osaka, amongst others, to personify and play character of AI, for making consumers experience the AI universe.