Slashdot Mirror
Facebook Is Testing An Unsend Feature For Messenger (cnet.com)
Facebook is reportedly testing a feature that will let you take back what you send via Messenger. The company said it was working on the feature back in April after TechCrunch caught it deleting messages from CEO Mark Zuckerberg. After TechCrunch asked Facebook about its progress on the 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." From the report: Now we have our first look at the feature thanks to TechCrunch's favorite tipster Jane Manchun Wong. She's managed to generate screenshots of a prototype Unsend button from Facebook Messenger's Android code. Currently, you can only delete messages from your own inbox -- they still remain in the recipients' inbox. But with this Unsend feature 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. That would essentially be an editing window in which users could take back what they said.
The moment a snapshot is taken, it's cemented in the interweeds foreva.
I tend to rant.
... gonna want an unsend undo because terrorism.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
Once you nut, you get an autistic APK and can never go back
Too bad Trump can't unsend himself to jail! WITNESS MEEEEE
That takes back users' private data stolen by hackers?
Once the other party sees those words, they know they saw them. "Taking them back" doesn't work. It's called responsibility for what you say, or in other words - adulthood.
"If I could turn back time"
I prefer the uninstall feature.
The kind that wipes out of existence Zucky and the website he stole from his classmates.
... asking for a friend who is out $20,000,000.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
Messenger shows you when it has been read by the other party. If they can make it so it doesn't show up in any "previews" like the notification bar before it has been really read, then it would be useful with unsend until that point.
Once it's been read unsend has very limited use.
AOL also had an unsend feature for mail so long as the other end was an AOL customer. Tech really is like the film industry or fashion, it just repeats over and over, just with minor variation. I imagine there's plenty of other services that had this way back when or even now I'm sure.
As an aside, I often wondered how many people sent something regrettable to a non-AOL customer and expected to see that unsend button yet it was not to be found.
Yet another feature that removes the need to think before sending.
because... SJW's
This worries me,l. While I like the idea of editing or deleting the last sent message I have a strong feeling that this will be more powerful then that. They've already proven that they're willing to rewrite history by deleting Zuckerbergs messages. If there's a time limit, I can't help but think that for when they want to, higher ups will be able to delete and edit what's in your chat history.
What Facebook needs is a one-button "Delete my account and all my data" button, with a single confirmation dialog box.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
Outlook handled that feature badly, it makes me want to read an email more when I get a message saying that the sender wants to retract it.
Nullius in verba
If I regret something I sent via Facebook messenger, then got into an argument as a result, then break up with someone, then closed my Facebook account, sold my house, quit my job, renounced my religion, joined a completely different church in a different faith, and then move to another state... can I open a new Facebook account and use this feature to unsend that message, undoing all the results from pressing send?
I'm... asking for a friend.
Our reign has gone on long enough. Indeed. Summon the meteors.