It is possible to delete messages sent on one of the world’s most popular messaging apps, WhatsApp, but it’s not exactly subtle.
In a chat, it still appears as a notification, with a note informing the other chat members that “This message was deleted”.
Now it looks like the app is testing a self-destruct feature that would allow you to set a timer for messages in a specific chat and they will disappear after an allotted amount of time, according to a report by WABetaInfo.
Other messaging apps like Facebook Messenger and Telegram have offered this feature for a while so it’s about time WhatsApp follows suit.
In tests of the new feature, it looks like WhatsApp users will be able to set the timer for between five seconds or an hour. Once the time has passed, the message will simply disappear. Presumably, it will also mean people can’t forward on messages to other chats too.
WhatsApp isn’t commenting on the story so for now we’ll just have to wait and see if it comes to your smartphone.
It makes sense for WhatsApp to offer a feature like this given that its parent company Facebook is making more of a push into “private social networking”. During Facebook’s F8 conference earlier this year, the company said one thing it was going to be working on something called “reducing permanence”. According to a blog post, Facebook doesn’t want people worrying about messages coming back to haunt them so it “won’t keep messages or stories around for longer than necessary to deliver the service or longer than people want.”
Facebook also has plans to bring together the chat functions of Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, and Instagram’s direct messaging feature. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg confirmed the plan was in place during a Facebook earnings call earlier this year but said it wouldn’t likely happen until at least 2020.
Following this, it’s likely that the different chat apps under the general Facebook umbrella will start to borrow features from one another. As self-destruct messages have been a part of Messenger for a while, it wouldn’t be too difficult to integrate it into WhatsApp.
