Meta has revealed that it plans to end the ability for Instagram users to chat with their Facebook accounts later this month, reversing a feature it launched more than three years ago. In September 2020, Meta (then Facebook) announced that it would merge its Facebook Messenger service with its Instagram private messaging service, allowing Instagram users to use the same platform to chat with Facebook users and vice versa.
The move is supposed to be part of a long-term plan to merge Messenger, Instagram and WhatsApp chat platforms into one underlying messaging infrastructure. The idea behind the plan is said to be to keep people within the Facebook ecosystem rather than using competing messaging apps like Apple's iMessage.
However, according to an update to Instagram's support page, starting in mid-December, Instagram users will no longer have access to the following cross-app communication features. After that:
You will not be able to start new conversations or calls from your Instagram and Facebook accounts.
Any existing chats on Instagram with Facebook accounts will become read-only, even if those Facebook accounts have been removed from the chat. This means that you and others with Instagram accounts cannot send new messages in these chats.
Facebook accounts will not be able to see your activity status or whether you have seen messages.
Any existing chats you have with your Facebook account will not be transferred to your inbox on Facebook or Messenger.
Once the cross-app chat ends, Instagram users will need to start a new chat from their Facebook account on Messenger or Facebook to continue the conversation with their Facebook account.
Meta did not state the reason for the change, but it is speculated that it may be part of a larger effort to comply with the European Digital Markets Act (DMA).
The theory is that Meta may be preparing to introduce wider interoperability between Instagram, Messenger and WhatsApp, which would satisfy a key requirement of the DMA. Or Meta is simply scaling back Messenger again—the company recently removed support for SMS/MMS on Android and shut down Messenger Lite.