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Facebook is introducing its “Secrets Conversations” service in an effort to help reduce the fears of users when it comes to digital spying and spam ad bombardment. Basically, users can send sensitive information to friends or family members and the message would be deleted after a few seconds if they want. The service uses a different thread of codes than normal “Messenger” conversations, which is meant to make it more difficult to break.
The social media giant Facebook has been facing a lot of heat since its inception, largely because of privacy issues that its users have to contend with. Particularly unnerving are reports of users sending private messages to friends regarding certain habits, interests or life affairs related to their everyday lives, and then afterwards start getting bombarded with ads and articles regarding the topics they just discussed.
As Tech Times notes, people are tired of weird promotions such as those regarding work-at-home offerings, which supposedly pay several hundred dollars an hour. These issues are what “Secret Conversations” are meant to curb, according to an official post by Facebook Messenger Head, David Marcus.
"Whether you're asking a doctor for medical advice, sending sensitive account information to your spouse, or even your Social Security Number, it's important to have options available for sharing these kinds of very sensitive messages," Marcus writes.
Marcus also stressed that this new offering simply offers added security for users that have extra sensitive information to send. Regular “Messenger” chats supposedly already benefit from strong digital protection.
On that note, it seems “Messenger” is a little behind on the game with regards to end-to-end security as Facebook’s other chat service “WhatsApp,” which the social media giant bought for $19 billion already implemented the protocol last April. This means that the 1 billion users of “WhatsApp” and those using “Messenger” can now chat with peace of mind, according to The Washington Times.
